


Don't Worry About It

by verdreht



Category: Justified
Genre: Action, Boom! Goes The Dynamite (Tim Doesn't Think It's Funny), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suspense, Tim and Raylan Are Badasses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdreht/pseuds/verdreht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: I don't own these fellas, but I'm gonna write for them anyhow. </p><p>Warnings: Violence, but it's not TOO terrible bad. Mostly just hurt!Tim, protective!Raylan (Tim is not the damsel in distress; he's a badass).</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these fellas, but I'm gonna write for them anyhow. 
> 
> Warnings: Violence, but it's not TOO terrible bad. Mostly just hurt!Tim, protective!Raylan (Tim is not the damsel in distress; he's a badass).

There weren't a lot of things in this world that Raylan Givens had to worry about, not much that he feared. He wasn't fear _less_  – "fearless" was just another word for "cocky," and that was just another way of saying "not long for this world" – but after seeing all the things he'd seen, it just took a little more than heights and spiders to get his nerves firing. Hell, up until recently, the only real things he made an effort to steer clear of were politicians, paperwork, and smart, outspoken women.

The latter, for obvious reasons.

Last couple of months, though, Raylan had started to notice sweat beading and hairs standing that had nothing to do with any of them. Seemed there was something else in Kentucky getting his juices flowing, and in more ways than one.

Now, Raylan liked to think he knew himself pretty well. He knew what he liked, knew what he didn't, and as such, it didn't take him terribly long to figure just what it was had him on edge.

Especially since he spent eight hours a day, plus overtime with the guy. Frankly, he reckoned the only reason it had taken him as long as it did was that, well, looking at him now, he wasn't much to be afraid of.

Tim Gutterson sat at his desk, just a little ways away from Raylan's in the bull pen. At first glance, it looked like he was probably doing some sort of research. He had those concentration lines on his brow where his brows pulled in and his lips pursed  _just_  a little bit in a way that fell somewhere between the lines of sexy and adorable. He looked…intent.

Only, Raylan knew there wasn't a damn case to be had – trust him, he'd checked – and if he'd had to bet money, he'd have placed a substantial wad on there being a solitaire game pulled up on that computer screen.

It was shit like that had him fooled at first. Or maybe not fooled, just…stuck with half the story. He'd thought Tim was just some fresh-out-of-the-military greenhorn, good in support but not particularly outstanding. Not that there was anything wrong with that; Tim was young, and he still had a few years to go before Raylan expected him to  _be all he could be_.

The first couple of weeks hadn't really done much to prove him wrong, either. Sure, Tim made a good save once or twice, especially with that Cooper/Dupree situation, but that wasn't enough to put him on Raylan's radar. Raylan knew plenty of fellas that were, if not as good as Tim, at least sidling up to his league.

Or so he'd thought.

He'd first started to notice it 'round that hostage situation. Oh, everyone had been quick to react, but Tim…damn, he'd never seen a fella move that fast. That draw he'd pulled had nearly been enough to put Raylan to shame, and in all his years teaching at Glencoe, he'd never seen a steadier hand in a high-tension situation.

He'd also never seen someone find chicken that fast past closing hours in Lexington, Kentucky.

But more to the point, that was the first time it had occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, there was more to Tim than met the eye. He thought at first it was the soldier showing, but that wasn't quite it. It was deeper than that…keener than that. For the most part, Tim was just…Tim. He was like a kid, all dry humor and weird comments that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. But then there were times when he'd see something…the flash of something in those blue eyes of his, and it was almost like he was seeing a totally different person. Someone that didn't so much as flinch when there was a gun pointed at him…someone that didn't sweat a bead before he took out a mark at six hundred meters through a window, a coat rack, and a barstool.

It was enough to make any man nervous.

There was more to Tim than that, though. He wasn't just the child-like background officer; he wasn't just a cold-blooded precision killer.

He came through for people. At the VFW, when he had no business being there, he'd kicked his night off to get them in. More than that, and what  _really_  got Raylan's attention, was how close he'd been to decking Arlo when the old bastard slapped him. There was no sense denying the knot in his chest when Art had to hold him back.

'Course, that knot had been there since Tim had swaggered in in that tank top that hadn't left much in the way of Tim's muscles to Raylan's admittedly  _very_  interested imagination.

Tim was the whole package, then. He was quirky, but devilishly funny in his own kind. He was a terror behind any sort of firearm; a reaper behind a sniper. And he was  _damn_  loyal.

He scared the shit out of Raylan.

More than that,  _Raylan_  scared the shit out of Raylan. Around Tim…there was always this voice in the back of his head, this  _urge_. A guy like Raylan…he'd stopped deluding himself into thinking he could be happy with picket fence, peaches and cream  _normal_. The reason he got on so well with Tim was that he knew there was nothing about himself that he had to be ashamed of. He was a killer, well so was Tim. He'd made mistakes, so had Tim. He knew he was no White Knight, and Tim was okay with that.

He knew it couldn't lead to anything good, but there was this niggling voice in the back of his head that argued that maybe, just maybe, it would.

And that…that gave Raylan something to fear.


	2. Chapter 2

Tim picked the strangest things to be afraid of. Movie nights with the office crew at Rachel or Art's with beers (or something with a little more kick) in hand proved something could get through that skin of his. He'd seen him squirm like a whore in church through more than one slasher film.

And then he'd turn around and stare down an armed psycho wearing that crooked little grin on his face, like he hadn't a care in the world.

At first, Raylan thought it was just a problem with his priorities…thought maybe there was something damaged in that odd little head of his. Hell, there probably was, whether or not it had anything to do with his feelings towards horror films.

Of all the times to figure it out, though, this really wasn't a good one.

He would like to say it all started off routine, but it really hadn't. Routine was informants and parole violations; it wasn't a tip on a bank robbery about to happen with a couple of scumbags on the Marshal's radar.

That said, Raylan had been in the situation before, back with that Bobby Green fella. So, of course, he'd been the one Art sent. It was a slow day in the office, though, so unlike last time, this time Raylan got a partner. Art had sent Tim along with him. For the company, he'd said.

That was code for: "for the not-so-off chance this might end in a shoot-out."

Raylan accepted those terms.

So, with Tim in tow, he'd shown up at the Lexington Mutual bank. It seemed they'd gotten there before all hell broke loose.

But only just.

Raylan saw the guy they were looking for, but it was too late: he was already raising his semi-automatic into the air.

He wasn't the only one. Two more thugs joined him, each armed with their own ski-masks and semi-automatics. But they weren't the ones his attention really went to.

"Don't." The one word was said quietly, but what it lacked in volume, it made up for in intensity.

Tim's eyes flicked down to where Raylan's hand rested on his own…where it rested on his gun. He'd meant to draw, but Raylan stopped him. Tim was good in situations where everyone was a target. The army put him in situations where it was him or the other guy.

It wasn't that cut and dry here.

"Everybody down!" shouted the one Raylan had identified as the top dog. He'd been the first to draw, which Raylan assumed meant he was the one calling the shots.

"What's the play here, Raylan?" Tim whispered, his lips barely moving and his teeth firmly gritted. Had the situation been any different, he might've wondered how Tim managed to speak through the teeth like he did. The guns kind of discouraged trains of thought not related to…well, the guns.

"Well, the semi-automatics those fellas are waving around like Union Jacks strongly suggest that we do as they say."

Tim looked at Raylan like he'd grown a second head.

"I said get down or get shot down!"

Raylan felt Tim's hand tighten on the grip of his gun, concealed beneath the black jacket Tim was wearing over his dark grey shirt. For once, Raylan was glad it was winter; Tim never wore jackets unless it was freezing outside, and the jacket offered some hope that maybe these goons wouldn't notice they were carrying.

Raylan tightened his own grip in turn, flashing Tim a look that he hoped Tim would understand. They couldn't do this…Tim might be good enough to take one, maybe two of the thugs before they could start firing, but with guns like the bank robbers were waving around, there was bound to be some people getting caught in the crossfire. Trust me, his eyes said.

Relief surged when Tim took his hand away from his gun, and they both got to the ground like the rest of the people in the bank. Raylan estimated a good ten, fifteen people had been in, including staff – it wasn't the biggest bank in the city.

"Here's how it's gonna go," shouted Big Dog. "Y'all are gonna line up and we're all gonna take a nice little field trip down to the basement. We see a single move outta line, one of my boys here's gonna shoot you."

Raylan raised his head enough to see the other two's shoulders bob. Chuckles, right on cue. Of course, they weren't the only ones chuckling – Tim, his hands folded behind his head, was chuckling right along with them. Only, his was less "intimidating thug in support" and more "incredulous deputy that can't believe this asshole said that with a straight face."

Because with Tim, there really was a look for that; sometimes, Raylan really did think he was a little off.

"You take too long doing what you're told to be doing, one of my boys here's gonna shoot you. You talk, one of my boys here's gonna shoot you. You even look like you're thinking something shifty, one of my boys here's gonna shoot you."

Well, that was pretty cut and dry.

It did its job well enough, though, Raylan supposed. Under the watchful barrels of those three semi-automatics, everyone stood up. Hands still in the air, people were herded through the door behind the counter, down the stairs to the basement.

Raylan meant to stay close to Tim, both to keep an eye on him – not because the guy couldn't take care of himself, because Tim was probably the last person Raylan ever needed to worry about on that account (at least in a combat situation) – and to see if they couldn't figure out a plan. At the last minute, though, a couple of people, including the security guard and a lady with her kid, slipped in between them. Since making a fuss was likely to get one of them shot, Raylan didn't have much choice but to go with it.

The stairs were dark as everyone filed down, and more than a few people stumbled as a result. Why the guys couldn't just flick the damn lights on and save them all the trouble was a mystery to Raylan, but he had bigger mysteries that pushed that one out of the way.

Where the hell was Tim?

They got down to the bottom of the stairs, and Raylan found himself following the line of people all the way down. They'd made them kneel against the wall, hands behind their heads and faces facing out. It seemed like they'd started the line at the door, so Raylan got ushered down the line to get to the end.

The good news was, he'd found Tim.

The bad news was, he'd somehow managed to get himself stuck on the far side of the line from Raylan.

Cursing under his breath, Raylan knelt beside the next person in line. There were still a few more people being brought in, so he had a chance to look around.

The basement of the bank was nothing to write home about. Concrete walls and concrete floors surrounded them, and vent shafts and piping hung from a similarly concrete ceiling, supported here and there by square concrete pillars. There were boxes and crates stacked in most of the corners. Raylan assumed they were filled with general office supplies rather than anything valuable, not because he had any great faith in the security of the place – clearly, it left a lot to be desired, if their present situation was anything to go on.

No, it was just that he figured all the really important stuff the bank had to offer…was locked behind the big ass vault door opposite the line of people.

That, as it turned out, was where Big Dog was headed. He wasn't alone, either. In front of him, with a semi-automatic nestled comfortably between his shoulder blades, was a short, balding man that Raylan recognized as the bank manager.

Raylan didn't envy him. He wouldn't have cared too much to have a trigger happy son of a bitch in a ski mask poking him with an AK either.

Still, he had to remind himself that the guy was a civilian, because the whole time Big Dog was marching him over to the vault door, a part of Raylan screamed at him to do something. One of the rookies at Glencoe would've known how to act – no one put the barrel of the gun that close to someone's back unless they wanted it to get turned around on them – and they would've in an instant. He had the chance to do something, that manager. To help.

But even a rookie had training. If this guy tried to turn and grab the gun like they taught them at Glencoe, chances were he was just gonna get himself shot. Maybe some other hostages, too.

It made his teeth clench, though, as they brought the manager to the vault door. With the booming acoustics of the basement, he could hear every word the robbers were saying to the little man, and it was driving him up the wall just watching it happen.

"You get one chance to open this door," said Big Dog. "You try anything funny, we make an example of you."

With a shove that nearly sent the terrified little bank manager sprawling, Big Dog set him on the key pad by the vault door.

The manager hesitated.

"No sense playing the hero, bub," said the smaller of the two backup thugs. The big one was just coming down the stairs, a couple of duffel bags in hand. "See, Marcus there used to work in demolition. Put in all the explosives that brought down the house, so to speak. He's got this place wired to do the same. Those police you called for with that silent alarm you thought you'd be tricky and trigger…they know we're gonna blow this place sky high if we see hide or tail of 'em. So you just ask yourself if your job's really worth your life and the lives of all these fine people."

The manager was visibly shaking, now. Sweat had made dark stains on his blue shirt, and in the poor lighting of the basement, Raylan could still see the salty beads covering his brow.

"I—I'm not—" The man stammered, and he yelped as the gun pressed into his back again.

"Last time, bub. Open the door or I shoot you, and Marcus'll just blow the damn thing."

Judging by the way "Marcus's" thumbs were tickling the triggers on the remotes in each of his hands – Raylan recognized it from his days in the mine when he'd seen plenty of the like in the hands of all the powder boys – he meant it, too.

So, semi-automatics and explosives…

Well, at least things couldn't get much worse.


	3. Chapter 3

There were some phrases Raylan really needed to learn to stay away from. He'd no sooner thought the words than he was proved suddenly and violently  _wrong_.

It was like being in a car accident: he could see it coming, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop it.

The security guard from before lunged. How he got from the squat to his feet was impressive, given what Raylan had seen of him. It's impressiveness, however, quelled in comparison to how  _impressively_ stupid it was.

Raylan wasn't quite sure what he was trying to accomplish, but he took a lunge at Big Dog. He wasn't close enough to do anything, even though he pushed himself up onto his feet. This wasn't gonna end well, and he wasn't gonna get caught sitting down. If nothing else, he could get the people around him the hell out of the way.

He could do damage control, but he wasn't close enough to interfere.

Tim was.

He saw a flash of dark gray rising up from the other end of the line faster than even the guard had managed. Tim had his gun drawn, but he couldn't see much more of him than that. Not with how quick everything moved. One second, he was watching Tim slam into Marcus like he was a pro-linebacker twice his size.

The next, the world was nothing but deafening noise and chaos.

The next time Raylan dared open his eyes, all he could see was dust – powdered concrete. It was heavy enough that it was starting to settle already, but as it was, he could hardly see.

Hearing was a different matter.

People were screaming. Women, kids, and men alike were all hollering about something. Raylan wasn't one of them, though. His attention was focused on trying to see what the hell had just happened.

A couple shots fired from the semi-automatics, so he knew at least one of the thugs was still alive and kicking. He couldn't see them, though. Not through all the debris and dust, so he kept down just to be safe. It wasn't that hard, given all the shit all around. Vent shafts, concrete chunks, crates….

Far as he could tell, though, the ceiling was still there. That was a plus, he reasoned. That much concrete falling on their head probably wouldn't end real well for anyone involved.

Another round of gunshots had him looking around. He saw hostages, but he didn't see any robbers.

"Everyone stay down!" he shouted. Everyone he saw looked all too happy to comply.

"Shut the fuck up and come out with your hands up!"

Raylan recognized the voice as Big Dog.

"Guess you're still alive then."

More shots, and they pinged off the concrete Raylan was hiding behind.

"I'll take that as a yes," Raylan said under his breath. He didn't care to say much more than that; he didn't want to give away his position again.

And now that his position  _had_  been given away, he needed to move. He was on the farthest side of the basement from the vault, and he knew he'd have to get closer if he was gonna have a snowball's chance in hell of lining up a shot on one of these guys.

Besides,  _Tim_  was supposed to be over this way. He'd seen him take of running for the guy that had just come down the stairs, so he reckoned he'd still be over that direction. He needed to find him, to make sure he was okay. He'd have been closest to one of the blasts, and that didn't sit too well with Raylan.

As soon as he started to move, the shots picked up again. Keeping his head down and his shoulders crouched, he made a run for the next bit of cover. He kept on like that, the dust and dire circumstances of his run not giving him much chance to look where he was going.

Not that it mattered. He made it nearly to the target side of the room when the back of his blazer was grabbed and he felt himself being tugged down. His shoulder knocked into a fallen-over concrete pillar, and when the stars finished dancing around his eyes and the breath came back into his lungs, he found himself sitting next to Tim.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said. His tone was casual enough, but the grin wasn't quite so good at hiding the bone-melting relief he felt at seeing Tim alive and kicking. Granted, he looked a little worse for wear, all covered in dust, and his brow was bleeding a steady trickle down his face.

Raylan didn't get much chance to observe more than that; a bullet pinged right above his head, and he quickly ducked back down, going shoulder to shoulder with Tim and keeping his head as low as he could.

"All three of them make it out?"

Tim shook his head. "Marcus's under a slab of concrete over there somewhere."

"What happened? I saw you running for him, but then I lost sight of you in all the…" he gestured vaguely at everything, only to quickly jerk his hand back down when another shot rang out. "Christ, but they're a trigger happy couple of fellas, aren't they?"

"No worse than that guard. Looked like Marcus was about to blow the joint, so I tried to take him down before he could. Only managed to get my hands on one of the remotes, though."

"You got one of them away from him?"

Tim reached behind him and pulled out one of the remotes, holding it up for Raylan to see. Sure enough, the battery was still on for the detonator; he'd grabbed it before Marcus managed to shoot it.

Raylan couldn't believe it. "You mean this is just the one?"

"I imagine it's the one for the upstairs. Get the cops when they came—" Tim shifted a little "—in. Though I don't suppose you care to try it to find out."

"Can't say I do." With a quick glance around the edge of the pillar, Raylan took a deep breath. "Two left. One to the right of the vault door, one behind the corner."

"Which one you want?"

"You tell me, sniper boy."

Tim seemed to think about it for all of about a half second before he drew his gun. "I'll take the corner."

But something'd caught Raylan's eye, and he stopped Tim before he could rise. "Hang on, now." He turned around so that he was facing Tim, still keeping his head low. "Last I checked, you were a righty."

Tim didn't say anything, but Raylan decided he really didn't care for the look in his eyes. Now that he got to looking, he could tell Tim seemed to be favoring his shoulder, and it didn't escape Raylan's notice how he flinched when Raylan reached for it.

"Easy, I'm just gonna take a look."

"We don't have time for this."

Raylan was undeterred. "Doesn't look to me like we're going anywhere in a hurry," he said. Carefully as he could, he pulled away the shoulder of Tim's jacket.

His stomach dropped.

Against the grey of Tim's shirt, his whole shoulder was a deep red. Dust stuck to the wetness, giving it a gruesome sort of grit to it.

"You're shot," he said.

"I noticed."

Raylan narrowed his eyes. As he did, though, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his pocket knife. Tugging his shirt out of his pants, he used the knife to cut away a thick strip. It was all he could do to ignore the sharp hiss Tim let out through his teeth as he pulled the strip of fabric around the back of his shoulder, tying it over the knot. "This is gonna hurt." That was the only warning he gave before he pulled the knot tight.

A strangled groan broke from Tim's throat, and he dug his head back against the concrete.

Raylan gave him a second, watching him closely for any signs of shock or anything, but slowly, Tim got his breathing back under control.

"You alright?"

Tim cut his eyes up at Raylan. "Peachy."

It wasn't so much sarcasm as denial, so Raylan didn't comment. Instead, he turned back around and gave one last peek over the top of the column.

"Can you still shoot?"

"Some of us learned how to use both hands, cowboy."

"I'll take that as a yes. Still want the one in the corner?"

Tim gave a one-sided sort of shrug. "Unless you want the pleasure. That's the bastard that plugged me."

"Well then, by all means. He's all yours. On three?"

A nod.

"Three…two…one…"

In an instant, both men rose, turned, and fired off a single round; they dropped back down just as fast.

Tim looked over at Raylan. "You get your guy?"

"Believe so. You?" At Tim's deadpan look – somehow still effective, even though he was sheet white and looking like he might just pass out – Raylan nodded. "Of course you did. You don't miss. And now you aren't gonna move while I go check on those two, okay?"

"You shouldn't go by yourself."

"I think I can manage. You be trying to get someone on the phone. I haven't checked yet, but it looks like Wile E. Coyote here caved us in."

Raylan didn't give him time to argue, though. With one last glance at the younger man, Raylan pushed himself onto his feet and ran to where they'd just fired. He was careful, keeping low, but he knew his shot had been spot on, and even left-handed, Tim was probably a sharper shooter than Raylan.

Sure enough, when he got over to the vault door, he found two bodies. One in the corner had a hole in the head, and the other had a bloody stain growing where his heart used to be. Just to be safe, though, he searched the bodies. All ammo went, and he put the now-emptied guns well out of reach.

It took him longer than he'd meant it to. He hadn't been gone more than a few minutes, but when he got back over to Tim, his heart jumped into his chest.

His eyes were closed. His head had lolled forward, and his phone had fallen from his hand to the concrete floor.

Raylan dropped to his knee in front of him, cupping a hand to his cheek and lifting his head up. "Tim? C'mon, Tim, wake up."

Tim blinked blearily, his blue eyes a pitiful mix of misery and indignation. "I wasn't sleeping," he said. His words were slurred, and in combination with his usual "muttering through my teeth" southern drawl, it was a little hard to hear him.

It registered to Raylan that people were moving around, now. With the threat of getting shot gone, they were starting to focus on other dangers. More than a couple times, Raylan heard a "blocked in" or "trapped" called out in the crowd, but he couldn't really be bothered with them.

He had his hands full with a shot-to-hell deputy.

"Alright," he said, one hand still on Tim's cheek, "I'm gonna check your shoulder, okay?"

"It's fine," Tim said. He tried to push himself up a little higher – he'd slid down a little since Raylan left, and it didn't look all that comfy – but it brought a wince out of him and he stopped.

Raylan frowned deeper. "Looks like it." And then he turned around to where the people had started to gather around the cave-in. "Don't suppose there's a doctor in the house?"

All he got were blank looks and shaking heads.

"Of course not…" He was a step away from cursing, but he forced himself to take a calming breath. The first sign that things were going to shit was when people started to panic. Albeit, the blood soaking through Tim's shirt seemed like a damn good reason to start to panic…

No. He didn't have that option. Since the security guard was the reason they were in this mess, he didn't strike Raylan as a good guy to put in charge. That left him.

Grabbing the phone from where Tim had dropped it, he searched the crowd for a fairly reputable looking person. There was a fella standing near the exit that didn't look to be in rough shape, and he looked calm enough. "You there," he said. The guy turned around just in time to catch the phone Raylan tossed at him. "Last number dialed – try getting them on the line. If that don't work, try 9-1-1. And someone be trying to find me a first aid kit."

The woman Raylan recognized as the mom that had cut in front of him before happened to find her way over at that point. "Is he alright?" she asked. That must've been before her eyes fell to Tim's shoulder, because her eyes widened and she put her hand over her mouth.

"Miss, mind doing me a favor and rounding up anything I could use to patch him up? Check what's left of the walls or any cabinets – they might have a kit around here somewhere."

For a moment, she didn't go anywhere, and Raylan thought he was gonna have to repeat himself, but then she nodded and set to it, leaving Raylan once again alone with Tim.

"Tim, you still doing okay?" Raylan could feel from the hand on his cheek that he was getting cold to the touch, and he'd started shivering. He was still losing too much blood, Raylan realized, and he thought that he might be going into shock. "I'm gonna need to check your shoulder."

Shock or no, Tim was still conscious. Conscious and still carrying on like there was nothing the matter. "Don't worry about it," he said. "I'm fine."

"You're bleeding like a stuck pig, Tim." As he spoke, he made quick work of the buttons on his button-up shirt, sliding out of it. A t-shirt was plenty; it was hot in there, and stuffy, and he wasn't real fond of the shirt anyway. Pulling his pocket knife out, he shredded his shirt into a few more pieces – cut off a sleeve and balled up a good bit of the rest – and cut the old makeshift bandage. "Deep breath," he said, and then pressed the ball of fabric against Tim's chest.

The pain must've been bad, because it actually brought a muted scream through gritted teeth. It was more than last time; worse, and Tim's good hand came up and grabbed Raylan's wrist in a vice grip he was dead sure would leave bruises.

"Sorry, buddy," he said. He knew it had to hurt bad; Tim didn't make noises like that for nothing, and if the grip was anything to go by, his partner was hurting something fierce.

"Sorry," Raylan said. "Sorry, just—Tim, keep breathing for me, alright? Keep breathing, nice and steady; I'm almost done."

Tim let out a soft groan and gave a little bit of a nod before his head lolled back against the pillar. His eyes went skywards, and his jaw clenched almost as tightly as the hand around Raylan's wrist.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Raylan found himself breathing in time with the younger man as he finished with the bandage. With one last sharp tug, he tied the fabric in place over Tim's shoulder and sat back on his heels.

He didn't know whether to be more annoyed or sympathetic when Tim tried to stand with him. Either way, he didn't think it was high up on the list of good ideas for a guy with a hole in his shoulder, so he put a hand on the one that  _wasn't_  playing at Swiss cheese and held him back against the pillar.

"I don't know where you think you're headed, Ranger boy, but it's probably best if you sit tight 'til help gets here."

"I can help," Tim said. "Let me—" Wince. Hitch. "Let me help."

Raylan's expression softened. Squatting down closer to Tim's level, he gave his good shoulder a comforting squeeze. "Best thing you can do to help is hang out right here. Don't try and get up, don't even try and scratch your ass if you can help it."

Tim, the crazy little bastard he was, actually had the chutzpah to arch an eyebrow and give the weakest version of his little trademark smirk. "You gonna do it for me?"

Since Tim was trying so hard for bright, Raylan figured the least he could do was play along. He forced a grin. "For you, baby?" he said. "Anything."

The sad thing was, that last part…he meant it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Been a while since I watched the show.

It was a bona fide miracle, but Raylan managed to get hold of Art. Well, the nice fella with the comb-over managed to get a hold of him, but seeing as how he passed it off like a hot potato, Raylan was inclined to save his breath singing his praises.

He could feel Tim's eyes on him as he raised the phone to his ear. "Art?" he said. The line crackled, and he could hear Art's voice, but he might as well have been speaking in tongues for all the good it did Raylan. "Art, I can't—I can't hear a damn thing." He'd no sooner finished speaking than the line went dead.

In front of him, Tim's lips curled around a look that could've been a wry smile or a grimace; he really couldn't call it one way or the other. "No reception?" Even if he couldn't read his face, Raylan could read the strain in his voice. Tim was hurting. Pretty damn bad, too, if he had to hazard a guess.

He frowned. "Doesn't appear to be," he said. "I suspect it might have something to do with our being buried in the next best thing to a concrete bunker."

Raylan wasn't nearly as surprised as he probably should've been when Tim let out a chuckle, and yeah, he was definitely smiling, even if it stretched tight as a drum. "Could be worse," he told Raylan.

Raylan raised an eyebrow. "Think so?"

"Yep."

"How do you figure?"

"We could be in your hometown," Tim said.

A smile pulled at the corners of Raylan's lip. "That  _is_  one hell of a silver lining."

Tim just nodded and let his head fall back against the concrete pillar. Sheet pale as he was and taking those short little breaths, Raylan found himself hoping it was just 'cause he didn't feel like holding his head up any more, and not 'cause he couldn't.

Raylan's smile fell. He reckoned it didn't much matter which one it was, truth be told. Tim was a tough little son of a bitch, and from what little Tim was inclined to share when liquor loosened his lips, Raylan got the impression he'd been in worse jams than this.

That didn't change the fact that, if they didn't find a way out of here soon, Tim could be in for some trouble. And since Raylan had more or less decided he'd deck the man if he so much as tried to move from that spot against that pillar, that placed the ball squarely in Raylan's court.

"I'm gonna see if we can't get a better signal anywhere down here," he said. "You gonna be alright here for a second?"

Tim peeled an eye open, peering at Raylan through short lashes and heavy lids, and for a second, it reminded Raylan just a little too much of the way he looked at Raylan those lazy nights they spent on the couch, drinking whatever devil water they had on hand and only half paying attention to whatever was on the television. He felt a pang in his chest, and damn, what he wouldn't have given to be back there instead of in this goddamned basement.

He tried telling himself they might be back there yet, come nightfall, but the sight of the blood seeping through the makeshift bandage on his shoulder shot that right down. Best case scenario, Tim was spending a couple nights in the hospital.

He refused to think about the worse case.

"Hey, don't worry about me." Tim's voice, low and a little thicker with that drawl than normal, drew Raylan's attention back to him, and damned if the crazy little bastard wasn't still smiling that crooked little smile of his. He started to try to push himself up a little higher against the wall, but Raylan stopped him with a hand on his knee and a look that said, 'hold still, you damn fool' – affectionately, he thought; he was going for affectionately – and Tim settled down again with a look of his own that fell somewhere between exasperated and amused. "Guess I'll just make myself comfortable, then."

"You do that," Raylan said. He gave Tim's leg one last squeeze and pushed himself to his feet. "I'll be back in two shakes."

Tim's head bobbed in something that might've nod. "I'll be here. You go play Marco Polo with your cell reception." And in case the ' _dis-missed_ ' hadn't been clear enough, he raised his good hand up and gave him a half-assed sort of shoo-off.

Raylan eyed him just a second longer, before turning off towards the far wall. It was furthest from the rubble from the explosion, and he figured there might still be a chance that not all the wires got knocked loose or something. He didn't know. Last time he'd dealt with any sort of cave-in, cell phones didn't even exist. He figured the closest he got to an exterior wall, to a vent, to  _anything_  that connected with the main floor, the better chance he had of picking up a few bars.

"Marco," he said, raising the phone up a little in the air. He didn't much mind the odd looks he got from the other people in the basement; he was cutting up a little for Tim's benefit. He could feel Tim's eyes on him as he walked away, and he was kind of hoping he could keep his mind off things a little longer. Although, it did make him wonder how Tim got to be such a good sniper. Raylan could always feel his eyes on him, this sort of pressure in between his shoulder blades that would always spread into his chest. It wasn't unpleasant. It was the opposite, even; it was getting to where he felt kind of out of sorts without it.

He was definitely relieved to feel it right about then. As long as he could feel his gaze on him, it meant he was awake, it meant he was  _conscious_ , and even though he wouldn't venture so far as to say he was  _good_ , it at least meant he was okay. All things considered, he wasn't exactly gonna look that particular gift horse in its pearly whites.

He wasn't going to push his luck, either. And while a little game of cellular Marco Polo was all well and good for a laugh, he had a better idea. All the civilians – plus one jumpy rent-a-cop – are crowded over in the corner farthest away from the blown vault, so it's not all that hard to track down the fella with the comb-over. He was chatting with a middle-aged bank attendant with straw blonde hair, pretty casually given the circumstances.

"'Scuse me for cutting in," he said, "but d'you remember where you were standing when you got the call to go through?" He figured why waste time prospecting when someone else had already broken ground, so to speak.

For all the good it did him. Comb-over turned out not to be much in the way of helpful, pointing over to a spot by the wall with a vague, "Somewhere thereabouts," and not a whole hell of a lot else.

Seemed he was gonna be prospecting after all.

Biting back a curse, because damned if the hits didn't just seem to keep coming, Raylan headed over to the wall. He was watching the phone to see if the big old slash through the bars on the phone went away, but he couldn't seem to keep his damn eyes on the phone. It felt like every few seconds he was looking up, eyes flashing over to the pillar across the room where Tim was sitting. He had his gun out, and every time Raylan glanced over at him, he seemed to be fiddling with a different part of it.

Only, maybe fiddling wasn't the right word for it. Fiddling made it sound like it was careless, absent, like he was just tinkering with it. It was almost the polar opposite. Far as Raylan could tell, his attention divided and distanced as it was, he was focusing awful hard on that gun, especially for someone Raylan knew could disassemble a handgun like that and reassemble it with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back.

Raylan knotted his brows, even as a single half bar appeared on his phone and he raised it to his ear. There was something didn't sit right about the way Tim was focusing on that gun, like he was trying to disarm a damn bomb.

"Tim?" Raylan called across the room, and even though he got his attention, it didn't settle Raylan's nerves any the way his head snapped up. He frowned deeper. "You alright?"

 _"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"_ Raylan nearly jumped himself when he heard Art's voice, crackling and muffled, coming through the phone.

"Shit, Art." There went ten years of his life. Between him and Tim, Raylan wasn't rightly sure he'd have any to spare by the end of this. "What the hell's going on up there?"

 _"What?"_ And just like that, Art was breaking up. Raylan had a flicker of a hope it was 'cause he'd moved somehow, even though his boots hadn't moved from that spot. He just kind of tipped, and he must've looked like a damn fool, wobbling around like that, but he frankly didn't have it in him to care just then.  _"Ray—n, you –ere?"_

"Damnit, Art, you're breaking up." He felt his chest tighten around something that felt an awful lot like panic, only that wasn't right, because he didn't  _panic_. He'd worked in coal mines; this wasn't the worst cave-in he'd seen, not by a mile.

Thing was, though…Tim hadn't been in any of those. He hadn't been  _shot_.

Raylan gritted his teeth and forced the knot to unclench, because shit, he was a U.S. Marshall, and he was Raylan Givens, and neither of those things came with an inclination towards panicking. He was losing Art. Okay. Not a whole hell of a lot he could do about it. He just had to work with what he had, get as much information to him as he could before the line went dead and trust Art would know what the hell to do with it.

He took a breath. "Alright, Art, here's the deal: this signal ain't gonna hold out. Cave-in's got us blocked in, no exits far as I can tell. I got the civilians by the east corner. Seems sturdiest, least damage from the explosion. We got an officer down by the vaults, gunshot wound to the right shoulder, and I ain't inclined to move him 'less I have to." That knot tightened again, and Raylan had to stop to swallow back the lump in his throat. "It's Tim, Art. Tim's shot." And if his voice sounded hoarse when he said it, well then he would blame that on all the concrete dust.

On the other end of the line, through the increasing static, Raylan thought he could hear Art swearing. It was hard to make out much of anything, though, and Raylan would've had a hell of a time figuring out what he said next, only he was a little too preoccupied.

The sky was falling.

Again.


	5. Chapter 5

Raylan couldn't see a damn thing. There was concrete dust everywhere, maybe even worse than before, because all the stuff that the first cave-in knocked loose had gotten stirred up, and the second cave-in had knocked loose a shit ton of other stuff.

It took a good long while – least it felt that way; really, it probably wasn't more than a handful of seconds, maybe less – for things to settle enough for Raylan to see, and he had to wait that long, because for all the grief Art gave him about going in half-cocked, he knew it didn't pay to go wandering through a cave-in when he couldn't tell his ass from his elbow.

So he waited, least 'till he could make out the shapes, pulling the neck of his t-shirt up over his nose and mouth so that maybe, just maybe, his lungs wouldn't end up like damn cement mixers.

"Tim!" he tried calling out, because that was the first thing that popped into his addled head, but it ended up coming out more as a cough. All the powder he'd already inhaled. He'd probably be coughing white for a week.

All he could think was that at least it wouldn't be black.

'Course, much longer in the haze of white powder, and he reckoned he might be longing for the familiar black. Least it wouldn't catch the beams from the last few emergency lights still stubbornly hanging on, wouldn't turn into a haze of red and dim yellows, like blood in the air. Shit, he could  _smell_  the copper. Taste it.

He knew it didn't make a lick of sense, but for some reason, it lit a fire under his ass. Because no, it wasn't real blood he was smelling and tasting, but somewhere in all this goddamn powder, Tim was really bleeding, and Lord only knew what else. Raylan'd been able to hit the deck when the ceiling started coming down again, and he chanced a glance at all the others.

They'd all dropped down when the ceiling started collapsing, too, and they were only just starting to push themselves up. He didn't really have it in him for a head count, but by his best guess, they all looked to be accounted for and in one piece, and maybe it made him a shitty civil servant, but that made them priority number two.

"You folks just stay there, you hear?" he called out nevertheless. Seemed he was right about that being the sturdiest place to be; aside from a little plaster and some ventilation, they hardly seemed any worse than they'd started. It was over by the vault – over by  _Tim_  – where the supports had collapsed that the real damage was done.

And Christ, it was a hell of a lot of damage. It looked like a full-on cave in, and he felt his gut wrench sickly, because if Tim was still over there, chances were good he was buried under nine, ten feet of concrete and rebar. It looked like some of the columns were still up, but even those looked compromised. Some had chunks out of them, others were cracked, and shit, some were more or less horizontal.

His feet were moving before he even registered wanting them to. The lighting was for shit, so Raylan turned back around to the group. Some of them were crying; Raylan could hear it. Some were coughing, one poor bastard over in the corner was singing his lunch, and some people were calling out for each other.

Sympathetic as he was to their current predicament, though, he had things he needed to do, and he couldn't really do it with everybody and their mothers losing their heads. He needed to get their attention, and he didn't much have the time or the patience to go about it gently.

Dropping his t-shirt from his face, Raylan raised his thumb and forefinger to his mouth and whistled loud as he could. Which, turns out, was pretty damn loud, if the twenty-some odd pairs of wide-eyed stairs were anything to go by. He might as well've fired off a shot, for how they were looking at him.

It'd do in a pinch, Raylan reckoned. Gift horses and their mouths and such.

"Any 'a you got a flashlight?"

"I got one."

It took Raylan a quick minute to figure out just who "I" was, but then he caught sight of the security guard coming towards him through the fog, a big old flashlight that could've doubled as a night-stick. But Raylan was a little beyond picky, and the big old boy'd no sooner gotten close enough to pass it off like a baton in a relay than Raylan was flicking it on and running it along the wall of debris that stood between him and where Tim used to be.

"Tim?" he called out. "If you can hear me, holler so I know where you are."

Nothing doing, though, and every second of silence blaring back at him from that damn wall of rubble tightened the knot in the pit of Raylan's gut until he could scarcely breathe.

"Damnit, Tim, I know you ain't much for talking, but now would be a damn good time to pick up the habit." But he'd no sooner finished saying it than the light of his flashlight hit something. Or, he reckoned,  _didn't_  hit something would be the better way of putting it, because instead of shining on a piece of concrete or broken glass from the shattered overhead lights, it went straight through. From what Raylan could tell, once he got a closer look, it seemed one of the pillars had fallen against another, and while it looked about as sturdy as a house of cards, Raylan found himself kneeling down in front of it without so much as a second thought. He crouched down low, shone the flashlight in, and from the looks of things, it kept going.

"Tim?" When he didn't get a response right off the bat, Raylan started forward on his hands, intent on going in and seeing for himself. But then he heard it. Least, he thought it did. Sounded like a groan, low and muffled. By the time he'd even registered hearing it, though, it'd stopped, and Raylan was half convinced it might've just been the building shifting, but then another sound echoed after it.

"Shit."

Now, Raylan was no architect, but he knew for damn sure, buildings might groan, but they sure as hell didn't swear. Tim was in there; there were no two ways about it. From the sounds of things, though, he wasn't exactly having a grand old time.

"You alright?" Raylan called into the opening.

Another bout of silence, and Raylan's nerves frayed every damn time he heard so much as a pebble shift. When he saw one of the bigger slabs get to moving, though, his whole body froze up. "Stop!" His eyes were fixed on the big mass of wreckage, a combination of ceiling and wall and column and what was left of the bank vault, and he forced himself to take as deep a breath as he dared. "Tim, I'm gonna need you to stop whatever it is you're doing in there. Just stop moving."

He wasn't expecting the wry, clipped sort of chuckle that came echoing mutedly through the debris. "Funny you should say that." Even from where Raylan was, he could hear the strain in the words. Tim always talked through his teeth, but this was something different.

"Tim, you hurt?" He tried to make it sound offhand. Routine. The whole point of this particular endeavor was to  _not_  get Tim stirred up, lest he get too fidgety and upset that little Jenga game he's under. But when Tim didn't answer for a little while, Raylan reckoned he might be the one getting stirred up. "Tim? You fallin' asleep on me in there or something?"

Another shift, and Raylan swore to God he felt his heart in his throat. It didn't help when he heard Tim let out another curse, and then, "Raylan, I think I'm pinned."

This time, it was Raylan that let out the curse. "Shit," he hissed, running his hand through his hair and bowing his head.

"What's going on?" the security guard asked.

Raylan didn't bother turning around to him, or even lifting his head out of his hand. He just raised the other, waved him off. "You go stand with the rest," he said. "Keep everybody over there, where it's safe."

"It's not safe over here?"

Raylan frowned grimly. "No…I don't reckon it is." The way it was shifting, another good settle like the ones before, and this little house of cards was coming down. And if Tim was right, and he really was pinned, it was coming down on him, 'less Raylan did something. "Just get over there and mind them. Keep an eye out for rescue teams; I don't reckon it'll take them too much longer to find their way in here. When they do, let 'em know there's two people on the west end, under the collapse. Can you do that for me?"

"Yessir," the security guard told him. Truth be told, Raylan wasn't much inclined to trust him – he was more or less the reason they were in this bind, his being a damn fool and all – but Raylan didn't see himself having many choices, and there were others listening in anyhow. Somehow, the message would get through.

He didn't wait for the guy to split. "Alright, Tim, I'm gonna come in there, see if I can't get you out."

"Raylan—"

He can hear the warning in it, but it's not good for much, because even if Tim's voice didn't hitch, Raylan was already halfway through shimmying under the column. "Might as well save your breath," he said anyhow as he made his way through the rubble.

From the looks of things, the first few pillars that went down were keeping everything else up, and even though Raylan had to crawl on his belly to get through a couple places, he was able to go where he wanted without too much trouble. Most of the difficulty he had was just him being careful, not wanting to nudge something the wrong way or cut himself open on the glass shards and metal pieces sticking out every which way.

It couldn't 'a been more than a dozen yards or so, between the upended pillar he crawled through and where he reckoned Tim to be, but it felt like he was crawling through that shit for a damn eternity. He was back in the mines, least in his head, 'cept he wasn't hauling ass trying to get out; he was hauling it trying to get in. Running towards something instead of away, straight into a cave-in, and for all he thought his instincts ought to be screaming at him to get the hell out before the whole damn thing caved in, they weren't. Shit, they were screaming the opposite: get in, get deeper,  _get Tim_.

"Damnit, Tim, where the hell are you?" It was a damn obstacle course under there, and he wasn't sure how much farther he'd be able to go before it was too blocked for him to get through.

But then, "Raylan."

Raylan felt his vision go white for a second. Which, hell, might've just been all the powder, but that didn't keep the surge of relief from knocking the wind out of him. Wherever he was, he was close, and after shimmying under what looked to be the metal insides of one of the industrial lights, Raylan made it into a sort of pocket.

And there he was. Tim. He was sitting up, not buried, not  _dead_ , and even though he'd heard his voice, seeing him with his own two eyes sure as hell took a load off.

It didn't last too long, though. Only about the two or three seconds it took Raylan's brain to get firing again and his eyes to follow Tim's good hand down to where he was grabbing at his left leg.

"Shit."

A piece of concrete was laid out across Tim's leg, just about under his knee. Far as Raylan could tell, it looked to be a good chunk off one of the pillars, with rebar and metal mesh jutting out from where it'd broken off. He couldn't really estimate the size, not with all the other rubble around it, but it was big enough that Raylan knew it could be trouble.

Quick as he could, crouched like he was, Raylan made his way over to him. He was trying to turn himself loose, Tim was, and the realization made Raylan's gut clench, because for all his efforts, he hadn't managed to get out yet. A guy like Tim, squirrely and resourceful as shit…if he couldn't get himself loose, then that didn't bode real well.

"Alright," Raylan said when he got to him. "Come on, sit back. Let me get a look at it."

Only, Tim didn't seem too inclined to hand over the reins just yet. He kept tugging at his leg with his good hand, and kicking at the concrete slab like he meant to just kick it off. He had his teeth gritted, and Raylan could see the moisture trickling down his brow and upper lip, catching the concrete powder like white mud on his face.

That wasn't what had him worried, though, so much as the look in those wide eyes of his. He knew that look: the caged-in look. He saw too much of it in the mines, and it wasn't something a man forgot seeing. Fellas went crazy looking like that, lost their nerves and then some, their minds.

They were just regular folk, though. Miners, sure, but regular all the same.

Tim wasn't. Regular, he meant, and when he got that wide-eyed look, it wasn't panic filling those baby blues, but this intense focus, this sharpness. Raylan'd only seen the likes of it when Tim had a gun in his hands and meant to do something with it. He meant to do something, now.

Problem was, this wasn't a gunfight. That wasn't a scope he was looking through, but a haze of concrete powder and a shit ton of pain, and that pillar wasn't a mark he could put down with one of his damn near unnatural shots. And see, calm as he was now – and all things considered, it looked like he was pretty damn calm – Raylan had the niggling sort of suspicion there was a good chance of that going south in a hurry soon as Tim realized his leg wasn't coming loose.

Seeing Tim hurt was bad enough; Raylan didn't think he could stomach seeing him scared, too. Not Tim. He was too damn unshakeable, and hard as it was to admit it, Raylan cared too damn much.

"Tim, lean back and let me see." It wasn't a request, and it came out sounding a whole hell of a lot steadier than Raylan felt. It seemed to do the trick, because after a second, Tim let up his grip on his pants leg enough for Raylan to ease his hand away. He didn't put up too much fight, either, as Raylan pushed back on his good shoulder to get him to ease back just a little bit.

Raylan was fixing to turn the flashlight on the beam, see what all was resting on it, see if there was a chance he could move it enough to free up Tim's leg without upsetting whatever delicate balance was holding all this up in the first place, but then he heard Tim let out a breath.

"Shit, Raylan," he muttered, and Raylan turned back to him, "your head."

It took Raylan a good long second to process what Tim'd said, but then he raised his fingers to his head – and come to think of it, the spot over top of his right eyebrow was throbbing something fierce – and they came away red.

He reckoned that explained the blood he was smelling before.

Raylan shrugged it off. "Love tap," he said dismissively, then went right back to checking out the cave-in. He moved in a little closer, enough that he could see over the pillar to the other side. He reckoned he could step over if he was careful, so he did.

"Bull."

Raylan glanced across the fragment of pillar at him. Tim had levered himself up onto his good elbow, and he couldn't rightly tell if that was a frown he was flashing or a grimace. Then Tim shifted, though, and it was definitely a grimace. Still trying to get loose, it seemed. Damn stubborn.

"Got worse than this arguing with the ex." And if he sounded distracted, it was 'cause he was. Looked to be the piece of concrete that was trapping Tim's leg was just leaning up against another slab – probably saved Tim's leg, he thought with a sick sort of twist in his gut – but it was hard to tell if there was anything leaning up against  _it_. Far as he could tell, seemed like half the ceiling'd come down on them. Supports, chunks of concrete and marble, all blocking them out enough that not a lick of that emergency light was getting in to them. Christ.

Tim let out a sound that might've been a chuckle. "You tellin' me Winona abused you, Raylan?"

"Well, now, no need to get all worked up on my account."

"I'll put in a call to social services for you just as soon as we're someplace with reception. How's 'at?"

Raylan met his eyes over the pillar and somehow managed a smile. The banter was good, their little back and forth. This whole thing was going to hell, but at least they still had this. "That'd be real sweet of you, Tim."

Tim snorted, but it ended in a hitched sort of groan that had Raylan doing a double take back to Tim. He'd slumped back off his elbow and onto his back, and his good hand had fallen back to grip his pants leg. Only, he wasn't tugging on it; he was just holding the damn thing like it was about to fall off, and gritting his teeth.

He was hurting, Raylan realized. More than just his shoulder, but his leg. Which meant it wasn't just pinned. Either that pillar was  _on_  his leg, crushing it, or—

"Tim, stop moving."

Tim peeled his grit-covered eyes open to look at Raylan like he was crazy. He gave his leg another tug; Raylan didn't think he was just being spiteful, figured he was really just trying to get out, but truth be told, he didn't much care.

"I said stop moving!"

That got Tim's attention. He froze up, and that crazy little look he was given him turned into something serious. Something confused and demanding and…shit, just a little bit… _scared_.

Raylan knew the feeling.

He forced himself to take a breath, to keep his head and his voice level. "Tim, I need you to keep that leg real still for me, alright?" he said as he knelt down. He didn't so much ignore the bite of glass shards through the knees of his jeans as just hardly notice it, because truth be told, his attention was a little occupied just at the moment.

Blood. A lot of it, pooled all around Tim's leg, making his boot shine in the light and his pants dark where they stuck out from under the pillar. Raylan could see pieces of metal mesh from the pillar sticking out, and if Raylan were a betting man – which it just so happened he was – he'd put good money on some of that catching Tim's leg under that slab of concrete. Maybe more than catching.

Problem was, there was no way to tell, and it wouldn't much change things one way or the other. If Tim kept pulling on it like he was, if he moved it too much at all, he was gonna do some real damage.

He ran his hand through his hair, biting back a curse that wouldn't help anything, and stepped back over the pillar to Tim. "Alright," he said, kneeling down next to him. "Alright."

"What're you—" His breath hitched as Raylan started to help him sit up, and his good hand went to his bad shoulder. Christ, even just moving that much seemed to hurt like hell.

"Easy." He swept some of the glass out of the way with his boot and slid in behind Tim against the pillar. He could feel him, as he coaxed him back to lean against his chest: every muscle taut as a bowstring, skin cold to the touch, and it felt like his whole body was shaking. Shock, he figured. He was losin' too much blood, hurting too bad. "Easy, now. Just tryin' to get you comfortable."

They were going to be there for a while.


	6. Chapter 6

Raylan frowned, turning the flashlight on another part of the cave-in. It was hard to do with just the one beam of light, it being dark as it was in there, but he was trying to pick out the load-bearing pieces from the rest of the rubble, thinking maybe if he could move some shit around without bringing the whole bank down, he might could get Tim loose.

It wasn't likely, not by any stretch. He knew that. Didn't stop him from trying, though, if only because it gave him something to think about 'sides the sound of quick, uneven breathing in his ears.

Raylan was no stranger to the sound, least certainly not as much of one as he'd have liked. He'd shared a bed with Tim enough times to weather a nightmare or two, and he knew that nigh-panicked huffing of breath, like there just wasn't air enough for breathing, just the same as he knew the violent tremors wracking what seemed like Tim's whole body, and some of Raylan's to boot.

Those times, though, it was just a matter of getting him out of his head. He'd get up, pour them each a finger or two of whatever he had on hand, and hell, maybe it wasn't the healthiest, but like as not, it'd do the trick. It'd pull Tim back from whatever hell it was going on behind his eyes, whatever shit that PTSD of his had conjured up from too many years of blowing peoples' heads off and ducking people trying to return the favor, and chances were they'd sprawl right back out. And if maybe Raylan would curl up behind him a little closer, hold him a little tighter, well then that was just the alcohol.

Not this time. This time, there was no scotch, no bourbon, no whiskey. There was nothin' Raylan could do to pull him out of his head, 'cause it wasn't  _just_  his head. His whole damn body'd been worked over something awful. His shoulder had a hole in it, his back and arms were all cut up and bleeding from the glass on the ground, and Lord only knew the state of his leg. Any one of those things'd be enough to put a man in a world of hurt, especially his shoulder and his leg, but all together, it was a damn wonder Tim was still conscious.

Every other minute or so, his breath would hitch. He'd shift, and Raylan would tighten his grip on him with the one arm he had slung around his waist. It was like those nights they sat up watching shitty television or whatever movie one of them cared to put in the DVD player – or the VHS, if they were feelin' nostalgic – and Raylan would catch him drifting off, head listing against the couch pillow or Raylan's shoulder, whichever was closer. And then he'd catch himself, tense up, blink a few times, and sit up, only to do the same damn thing not five minutes later. Raylan usually got a kick out of it.

Now, it just made his gut wrench and the knot in his chest tighten. "You still with me?" he'd ask, giving him enough of a nudge to get his attention, but not enough to jar him. "No sleepin' on the job. What would Art say?"

"He'd tell you t' stop pesterin' me," Tim muttered those first few times. These last few minutes, though – Raylan's not so sure he believes his watch when it says it's only been twenty since the second cave-in – he'd just kind of grumbled something Raylan couldn't rightly make out or just nodded stiffly.

Raylan could tell he was slipping. Tim was the toughest bastard Raylan'd ever met, but even he had his limits, and shit, he'd reached them. Passed them.  _Lapped_  them, even, because Goddamnit, Tim Gutterson didn't do anything by halves.

His head had just started to tip back onto Raylan's shoulder again, and Raylan was just about to give it a bump to wake him up when he heard it.

"Marshal!"

Tim must've heard it too, because Christ, he jumped like he'd been shot. Quicker than greased lightning, he went from slouching back against Raylan to ramrod straight, and Raylan caught his hand going for his side before he could stop him.

The bullet in his shoulder did the job just fine, though.

"Damnit," Raylan swore as his hand closed over Tim's. Reflex'd made him reach for his hip, but he'd reached with the wrong hand, and the strangled groan Tim let out made it awful clear that'd been a mistake. He started to double over, and Raylan let the flashlight hit the ground in favor of catching his good shoulder and holding him back. He had it in his head that the less moving Tim did, the better off he'd be. "Easy," he said. "It's just that damn security guard. Ain't no cause to go getting bent out of shape, alright?"

Tim nodded slowly, and Raylan heard him take in a deep breath. Seemed he didn't trust his voice enough for an answer; Raylan could hardly blame him. He'd pulled a move like that a few times after that mess up at the Bennett's, when he'd caught one in the side, and he'd been damn near whistling Dixie.

"Marshal!" Cliff's voice came echoing through the rubble again, and Raylan cursed again.

"Loudmouth son of a bitch's gonna bring the place down with just his hollerin'," he growled under his breath. He wasn't more than twenty yards away from the man; there was no reason to be carrying on like that.

"Sounds—" Tim's voice caught, and it sounded to Raylan suspiciously like he was choking something back before he tried again. "Sounds important." He took a few more breaths, like getting just that much out had been a fight. "Think maybe you should go see what he's after?" And from what little of Tim's face Raylan could see, he saw just a shadow of a crooked smile. "Maybe there's fourth man."

Raylan let his hand off Tim's shoulder – he seemed to have come back around enough to hold himself up – and made a show of crossing his two fingers before he sighed. "Suppose I should go see." If only so that Cliff didn't go and screw something else up.

"Go get 'em, Tiger!" Tim said.

"Well lookit who found his lip." Raylan hoped Tim couldn't hear how desperately relieved he was about that. And he hoped, too, that Tim hadn't noticed, as Raylan only just had, that…he was still holding his hand. Which, shit, when he said it like that, made it sound like something special, even though he was really only just holding it so Tim wouldn't go and hurt his….

Aw, to hell with it.

Raylan liked to think of himself as an honest man; he didn't make a habit of lying to people, and he sure as hell didn't make a habit of lying to himself. And if he were being perfectly honest with himself, he knew sure as shit it wasn't just about keeping him from hurting his shoulder. Might've started that way, on reflex, but now he was finding he was having an awful hard time making himself let go, and that had nothing to do with Tim going for his gun. He just…didn't want to.

Unfortunately, he didn't see as how he had a choice in the matter. Didn't stop him from holding on as long as he could as he slid out from behind him, eased him back to lean against the pillar again, and Christ, if the way Tim was squeezing his hand was any indication of how much it hurt…Raylan swallowed thickly.

"You alright?" His voice came out hoarse-sounding, and you'd think he was the one in some sort of pain. He reckoned he was. His head was pounding something fierce, and there was this stabbing sort of ache somewhere around his ches—shit, his heart. His goddamn heart hurt, seeing Tim in pain, and it was ten kinds of Hallmark bullshit, but that didn't change a thing.

But then Tim nodded – 'course he did, the crazy son of a bitch – and Raylan's lungs suddenly remembered how to work the same time he remembered how to control his muscles, specifically the ones responsible for holding Tim's hand hostage. He let him go, and if Tim noticed anything off about it, it didn't show. But then, his eyes were shut tight, and with the way his nose was flaring and his jaw was clenched, Raylan got the impression he had a lot on his mind.

"You sit tight, alright? I'll be back soon as I figure out what the commotion's about. Ten minutes, tops."

Tim didn't open his eyes, but he did nod again. "Take your time," he said in something at least resembling his usual easy drawl. It was tight, his teeth closed a mite tighter than they usually were, but he managed to raise his hand in a dismissive sort of wave, and Raylan reckoned that was about as close to okay as Tim was gonna get in his condition. "I got nowhere t' be in a—" he shifted a little bit straighter on the pillar, and winced for his trouble, "—hurry."

"I'll leave the flashlight." He reckoned his phone would be enough to get him back out, and the thought of leaving Tim alone and in the dark in here just didn't sit right with him.

"You do that."

"And you holler if something happens."

Tim peeled an eye open, and Christ, he couldn't have looked more deadpan if he tried. "You gonna go see what's goin' on out there, or you just gonna sit here and play mother hen?"

A lesser man might've taken offense to something like that, Raylan thought. But he couldn't. Not when he could tell Tim didn't want him to leave just as much as he didn't want to. So, instead, he just shot him a look that was equal parts 'pipe down, smartass' and 'I swear to God I'm coming back.' Least, he hoped that was how it read. Might've just looked annoyed. His eyes weren't half as expressive as Tim's were

Must have been enough for Tim, though, because he let his eye slide closed.

"Now, don't go fallin' asleep while I'm gone," Raylan told him as he made his way over to the opening in the pocket. "Try not to miss me too much."

"Can't miss you if you won't leave," Tim muttered, and Raylan allowed himself a small smile before he started the slow crawl back through the rubble pile.

He had his phone out and open between his teeth as he wormed his way through, using the light to at least get a vague idea of where he was going. Not that he much needed it. Cliff was out on the other end hollering, and Raylan reckoned he could just about follow his voice to freedom if need be.

"Where's the fire?" he called out soon as he could see the red lights of the basement outside. But for all his impatience getting Raylan's attention, Cliff seemed more than happy to wait until Raylan crawled out from under the pillar and got his feet under him to tell him the good news.

"Rescue crews are here," he said.

"No shit."

"Shit."

Raylan thought about telling him that wasn't a question – he could see the men in the damn orange suits and hardhats from where he was standing, thanking you kindly – but it seemed like a waste of time and breath he didn't have, so instead, he pushed past Cliff and jogged over to the closest rescue worker, the one that wasn't occupied with harnessing up one of the bank tellers.

"What's the situation?" he asked as he came up on him.

The man turned around – name badge read Carter – and for a second, he looked confused, right up until his eyes fell to the US Marshal badge under his hip.

"Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens?" Carter said.

"In the flesh. Now what's goin' on?"

Whether he picked up on the impatience in Raylan's voice or just knew already there wasn't time for chitchat, Carter cut straight to business. "We've got access to ventilation shaft down the eastern wall. We're lifting people out, but we can only do it one at a time." He paused, looking around, and then, "I was told there was another Marshal."

The knot in Raylan's chest gave another tug. "There is."

"So where is…" But then he seemed to catch on, because his eyes drifted over Raylan's shoulder to the pile of rubble, widened, and his face went grim. "What's his condition?"

"GSW to the right shoulder, but I think we managed to get the bleeding under control. He's got his leg pinned under some concrete. Meshing tore it all to shit, and it might be broken; I don't know. But I can't get him out by myself."

Carter's face set harder. "We can't bring more men in until we've secured the civilians."

"And how long's that gonna take."

"Another half hour, at the least," Carter said, and Raylan swore.

"Sure you can't go any faster than that?"

Carter shook his head. "Not without compromising the shaft or the rigging." And then he grabbed the walkie off his jacket and passed it over to Raylan. "Your chief wanted a word with you soon as I saw you."

Raylan took the walkie and tuned it to the channel Carter told him to, then raised it to his face and pressed the button. "I'm here, Art."

 _"Raylan? You okay?"_  Art's voice crackled over the radio. Even radio reception was for shit down there.

"I'm fine, Art." Raylan's voice sounded clipped even to his own ears, and he found himself glancing back at the rubble, then at his watch. Five minutes he'd been out here almost. Five minutes Tim'd been in there by himself. He couldn't let it get to ten.

"You sure about—" Carter started, but Raylan silenced him with a look. He knew his head looked a hot mess, and his hands and arms were pretty well cut up from the glass, but he really didn't give a damn. He was on his feet, coherent, and not in any immediate danger. That put him 3-0 over Tim, so he and his little bump in the head could damn well wait.

 _"What about Tim? He there with you?"_  And even with the shitty quality, Raylan could hear the edge of worry in Art's voice. Ornery a son of a bitch as he was, and as good as he was at hiding it behind scathing sarcasm and a general air of annoyance, Art gave a damn.

Which made tellin' him a hell of a lot harder than telling Carter. "He ain't here, Art," Raylan said, running a hand through his hair. His fingers caught on something tacky, and he frowned deeper, because damned if head wounds didn't bleed like a bitch. "A part of the ceiling collapsed, and he's pinned."

There was a long silence on the other end of the radio that had Raylan's gut churning, and then static, and then,  _"Shit."_

"Yeah," Raylan agreed humorlessly. "Shit."

_"Don't suppose you know how he's doing, do you?"_

Raylan sighed, because honestly, he didn't know how to answer that. He wasn't a doctor, and knowing Tim – that, at least, Raylan reckoned he had going for him, much as anyone could – he was probably ten times worse than he was letting on. "He's hanging in there," was what Raylan eventually decided to go with. "The recue guy says it's gonna be another half hour before they get the rest of the civvies up."

_"Civvies? And where the hell are you gonna be?"_

Somehow, Raylan got the feeling Art already knew the answer to that question. That was his 'I'm just asking, because I can't believe you're really that big an idiot' voice.

Believe it.

"I'm staying down here. Gonna see if I can't help dig Tim out."

_"They don't need your help."_

"Well then I reckon I'll just keep Tim company, then.

_"Raylan—"_

"Art!" Raylan cut him off, probably a lot louder and sharper than he should, Art being his boss and all, but that'd never really stopped him before, and it sure as hell wasn't going to now. That said, he did take a breath, if only for the sake of his blood pressure and the steady pounding behind his eyes. "I'm not leaving him down here, alright?" Only it wasn't a question. Not even slightly.

Art must've heard that in his voice, because he let out a sigh of his own.  _"You're a stubborn son of a bitch, Raylan. You know that?"_

"That's what they tell me."

_"Be careful, at least."_

"Always am, Art," Raylan said. "Always am." And then he passed the radio back to Carter. Eight minutes. He'd been out here eight minutes. He needed to get back.

He'd barely started to turn when Carter caught him by the shoulder. "Where are you going?"

"Where do you think?"

Carter glanced back to the collapse again and frowned. "It's unstable."

"I know." Christ, but he knew. And just like back in the goddamn mines, it scared the shit out of him.

But the thought of leaving Tim in there all by his lonesome scared him a whole hell of a lot more.

"Just send your boys in soon as you can. You know where to find us."

Carter looked at him like he couldn't decide if he was crazy or bona-fide off his rocker. "I can't let you go back in there."

Raylan turned around, clenching his fists at his side. Nine minutes. He was running out of time, and what's more, he was running out of patience.

"Well, now, you planning on trying to stop me?"

Carter didn't answer, and Raylan didn't much feel like waiting around for him to come up with something, so instead, he just tipped his head – it didn't quite feel right without the hat; he'd have to figure out where it got off to, once all this was taken care of – turned on his heel, and went jogging off back to the rubble.

It'd been ten minutes.


	7. Chapter 7

Raylan wasn't real sure what he was expecting to see when he got back through the cave-in. Truth be told, he wasn't really giving it much thought. But if he had to make a guess, he'd have said, shit, maybe he'd be spaced out. Maybe dozing, even, for all the grief Raylan'd given him. He mighta even been unconscious.

So one can understand his surprise when he found himself staring down the barrel of a Glock 19.

He froze mid-crouch, partly because that seemed like the right course of action when faced with a firearm, but mostly just because he was…well, damnit, he was kind of thrown.

So he froze up, and damned if every muscle in his body wasn't screaming at him to move, to speak, to  _do something, dammit!_  But in his head, he knew better. He knew better, because he knew Tim, knew that look in his eyes, all glassed-over and far away, like he was looking at something a thousand miles off.

In a way, Raylan reckoned he kind of was. Only, in his case, it was probably closer to seven thousand miles, and he wasn't just seeing it. There were times, those nights they'd up at one of their places and stay 'til morning, Tim'd wake up with his hands over his ears, like he could  _hear_  it. Mornings – nights even, after a hard case – he couldn't even look at any sort of red meat, and he'd spend the whole damn night drinking shit that made Raylan's throat feel like it was on fire, like he was trying to burn a bad taste out of his mouth.

He knew the dead-on steadiness of that hand on that gun, too. And it was  _dead_ - _on_ , even though he'd been shakin' like a dog shitting hammer handles not ten minutes earlier.

It wasn't a good thing.

See, Tim only got like that when he had a gun in his hands: that steady, that focused, that  _still_. Every other time of his life, he was a damn bundle of energy, always talkin' with his hands and moving every which way until Raylan nearly got tired just looking at him. But you put a gun in his hands, or shit, even a knife, and he went statue still. It was like a cord wound too tight, like some sort of damn big cat gettin' ready to ruin some poor bastard's day, all coiled muscles and barely-restrained energy just waitin' for the green light. He was a different person. Not that smartass son of a bitch that liked teenage fantasy novels and Disney movies and drinkin' too much, but this...shit, Raylan couldn't even describe it, except…

Dangerous.

He shook his head – and  _goddamnit_ , that hurt – and grit his teeth. He wasn't some mark Tim was gettin' ready to take down, and Tim wasn't in any position to be takin' anyone down. Even if Raylan knew damn well that he could.

"Tim, you wanna tell me what you're doing?" he asked, somehow forcing his voice out low and even past the tightness in his throat. He'd raised his hands on reflex seeing the gun, and he held them now stretched in front of him as unthreateningly as possible. And when Tim didn't lower the gun, he tried again, not louder, but more forcefully. " _Tim_."

It took a second. More than second, maybe; enough for Raylan to start wondering what the hell he was going to do if Tim didn't snap out of whatever daze he was in. But he did, sort of. Slowly, recognition started to seep into those wide, glassy eyes. The more it did, though, the more confused Tim looked, until…shit, he just looked  _lost_.

"Raylan." It came out sounding like a question, all quiet and rasped. A prayer, maybe, like he wasn't real sure he was really seeing what he was seeing, but hoped like hell he was.

Raylan swallowed thickly. The lump in his throat and the knot in his chest were makin' it awfully hard to breathe, much less speak, but he reckoned if Tim could manage, he could, too. "You were expectin' someone else?" he asked. Somehow, he managed to keep his voice level, and he even managed a smile, thin and brittle as it was.

It was meant to be rhetorical, but Tim seemed to think it needed answering. He blinked a few times, hesitantly – Raylan had half a mind to forget the gun and just go grab him, just so he'd stop actin' like Raylan was fixin' to disappear or something – and his chest had taken to heaving damn near frantically, his nose flared and eyes wide. That unnerving stillness was gone; that unnatural calm was all shot to hell, and damn him to hell, Raylan was  _relieved_ , 'cause at least that meant they were getting somewhere.

"I wasn't—" Tim started, but he stalled out. Raylan wasn't sure if it was 'cause his voice was cracking, which they'd both of them blame on the concrete dust, or if he just didn't know what he wanted to say. "I don't—."

Second time it happened, Raylan got the feeling it was the latter. And that, he wasn't relieved to figure out.

"Shit," he breathed. He didn't mean to, not aloud at least, but he had this sinking feeling in his gut. This wasn't like one of those nightmares. He couldn't get him drunk on hard liquor until that crazy brain of his stopped fucking with him, couldn't throw an arm around him and drag him back to bed; he couldn't even touch him for God's sake. It was one thing when it was just his mind playin' tricks on him, but this was his whole damn  _body_.

He still had his hands up, but he started to lower them now that he was more or less convinced Tim knew he was there. Maybe he wasn't sure of it, yet, but Raylan believed just thinking it was enough. It'd have to be. He couldn't stand there like a damn fool a moment longer.

His first step had Tim's eyes snapping back into focus, where they'd drifted just a moment before, and Raylan could see the light from the flashlight on the ground reflected in them, making them shine bright and haunted. He knew if he looked close enough, he'd see that fleck of brown in his right one, just a spot. Hetero-somethin', but he hadn't paid much mind when Tim was explainin' it, because Tim hadn't seemed to find it all that important.

He remembered, though. He knew that spot in his eye, knew the scar on his chest under that tattoo of his – a tattoo that'd no doubt have to be redone, now that he thought about it, but Raylan was too wrapped up being held at gunpoint by his injured partner/lover/maybe-drop-the-r to ponder the irony of a gunshot ruining a tattoo to cover a gunshot – knew the little scars from shrapnel dotting his chest under the thin dusting of hair, knew that spot on his wrist, right dead center of that bullseye, that drove him up the goddamn wall. He knew  _everything_. Shit. Every part of him on the outside, and he'd wager more than most on the inside. He'd seen sides of him he knew Tim kept close to his chest, and vice versa, and—

"Goddamnit," he swore lightly, because if there'd been any doubt before now, there wasn't any more. He…shit, he  _loved_  that crazy son of a bitch on the other end of that Glock. Loved every goddamn thing about him. The smartass remarks, that easy grace, that grin that split his whole damn face in half when somethin' tickled him the right way…he loved that crazy ass sniper.  _His_  crazy ass sniper.

And there was no way in hell a gun was gonna keep him from lookin' after what was his. Even if  _he_  was the one holding it.

"Alright, Tim, how 'bout you put that thing down," he tried, but when he took another step towards him, he saw Tim's fingers tighten around the grip. The aim snapped back from where it'd drifted, and even though Raylan knew it was just reflex, it didn't stop him sighing and gritting his teeth. "Now, listen, Tim: I don't know what you got in that head 'a yours, but I didn't crawl all the way back into this rat trap to hurt you, so would you cut the shit and drop the gun, or am I going to have to do something foolish?"

He regretted the words almost as soon as he said them, though. He didn't mean to be so short; Lord only knew Tim didn't deserve it. But Raylan was hurting, all the cuts all over from crawling through the glass and the goose egg straddling his temple, and he was ten kinds of on edge, and as much as all that paled in comparison to Tim's situation, he was only human. Flesh and blood, and he was getting dangerously close to the end of his rope.

And yet, even so, there was an apology on his tongue, and he was just fixin' to let it loose when, lo and behold, Tim took his finger off the trigger.

"Raylan." It wasn't a question this time, and Raylan was too busy remembering how to breathe again to give any thought to how it took him being an asshole for Tim to believe it was really him. But then Tim's eyes widened again. "Shit, Raylan, I—" His voice caught, and Raylan could see the panic surge into his eyes just the same time he could see his fingers lose their grip.

He was already moving by then, though, and he made it to kneeling in front of him just in time for the gun to bounce off his knee on its way to the ground. The sound made Tim jump like he'd been shot, eyes darting around towards the noise even though he was more or less the one that made it.

"Hey," Raylan said, and when Tim's eyes flashed towards another sound, some rumble in the concrete, Raylan realized he was getting nowhere fast. Frowning, he caught Tim's chin in his hand and forced his head around to face him. "Hey, Flighty, eyes on me."

It took a good long second, but finally those oddball blue eyes found their way to Raylan, and he met them with as much of a smile as he could muster.

"You with me?" he asked.

Again, it took a good long second, but Tim finally managed a nod. With his hand still on Tim's chin, he could feel him swallow thickly, and he moved it down to his good shoulder just in case it was making him uncomfortable. "Think so."

"You think?"

"I think," Tim repeated, and maybe it was just Raylan's imagination, but he could've sworn he saw a flicker of that usual Tim-style irritation, complete with a slight cant of his head and narrowing of his eyes.

Raylan wasn't ready to let it go yet, though. "Meanin' you don't know?"

And there it was. That dry-as-bones deadpan look that seemed to be the closest Tim came to a glare. "Yeah, meanin' I don't know." Tim turned his head, same way he always did when he was cross, eyes cutting sideways. "Shit, I don't…I can't think straight. Head's all over." He waved his good hand loftily. "Reckon you're here, but…"

"But what?"

Tim's eyes rolled back around to him, still glassy and kind of out of focus, and Raylan could've sworn his head would've lolled to the side if he hadn't moved his hand back up to catch it. "But 'm fuzzy on where that is. I think…" he trailed off, though, shaking his head, which probably would've been easier if Raylan's hand hadn't been holding his cheek, but Raylan thought better of taking it away. "Don't know what I think."

And that didn't seem to sit too well with him.

"You remember what happened?" Raylan asked, but truth be told, he wasn't real sure he wanted to know the answer. He'd seen blood loss do some strange things to a man's mind, and for a mind with a baseline level of strange as high as Tim's was, it seemed to him there was a whole lot of room for things to go wrong.

Tim's eyes roved around, but Raylan wasn't so sure if they were seeing so much as just wandering. "Bomb," he said finally, and Raylan would've been pleased as punch, only it sounded like a goddamn guess. Knowing Tim, he could just as well have been talking an IED or some shit.

Raylan sighed. "The bank collapsed. You got caught under the—hey, now, hold on. You're alright. Just sit back." Because soon as Raylan said  _caught_ , it was like some of the lights flicked back on in that head of his, and he sat up straighter with a muted gasp, good foot kicking out like he was trying to get some traction. All the glass and rubble and grit on the ground, he didn't do much more than make himself slide down the pillar, until Raylan caught his belt with his free hand and hauled him right again. "You need to hold still."

He wasn't really sure Tim had heard him – moving like he had, he must've tweaked something, because his face was screwed up in a grimace, and he looked like he might be sick – but, "Now he tells me," he ground out through gritted teeth. But he was nodding, so Raylan assumed he'd heed the warning.

"Alright," he said after Tim seemed to get his breath back. As much of it as he was going to get, anyway. "Let's see if we can't get you comfortable."

Tim snorted. "That'd be a real trick."

"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

"Quotin' moving lines at me, now?" Tim asked, arching an eyebrow and freeing a clump of concrete powder that'd gathered on his forehead. He chuckled softly and let his head fall back against the pillar, a wry, crooked smile on his lips. "Must really be fucked."

Raylan felt his gut twist, but managed to keep a grin of his own. "Now don't go gettin' ahead of yourself," he said, deliberately slow and just a mite patronizing, "that comes later. Soon as we get topside with the others."

"You're a hoot."

"Me an' the owls," Raylan agreed. "Now, come on." He started to slide in behind him, like he was before, only before he could, Tim sat up again.

"Hold up." And Raylan did, stopping and turning in time to see Tim's brows furrow. "The hell you doin' here, Raylan?"

Raylan felt his gut give another twist. Hadn't been five minutes since he told him just what was going on, and he'd already lost it? "Christ, Tim, I told you—"

"I ain't askin' what happened," Tim cut in, voice just shy of sharp. "I'm askin' what the hell you're doin' here."

"As opposed to…?"

Tim looked like he couldn't decide if Raylan was stupid or irritating. "Topside. You said th'others were topside."

"I did," Raylan said, nodding. "So?"

" _So_ , what the hell're you doin' down here?" Tim repeated, and Raylan couldn't tell if his drawl was getting thicker because he was getting hacked off, or because he was having to fight to get the words out. The way his chest was jumping, Raylan couldn't help wondering.

"Just thought I'd keep you company," Raylan answered. He sounded a lot more casual than he felt, and a lot more casual than he reckoned Tim wanted him to be. Especially when another rumble of concrete sounded from the walls of their little pocket.

The groaning metal probably didn't help.

"Place's comin' down." That wasn't a question, either. Tim's voice was dead serious when he said it, and Raylan got dead serious hearing it.

He ran a hand through his hair, wincing when his hand bumped that goose-egg. "Yeah," he said, eyes drifting down to the glass on the ground. The flashlight lit it up kind of odd. "Yeah, I reckon it is."

"Then get the fuck out."

Raylan's head snapped up. "What'd you just say?"

"Get. The fuck. Out," Tim repeated, each word pointed, measured, and dry as the concrete powder still floating around the air.

"Tim—"

"Raylan, I swear to God if you don't get your ass out of here, I will shoot you myself." And Raylan knew, just from the sound of his voice, he wasn't pulling his leg. Maybe he wouldn't shoot him – couldn't, he reckoned, not with how far that gun had skittered away, and him being more or less immobile and all – but he meant it: he wanted Raylan gone.

Raylan sat back on his heels, stumped. "You know I can't just leave you in here," he said.

"You found your way in," Tim muttered. "Sure you can find your way out."

"Don't get smart." Raylan scowled.

Tim scowled right back. Not one of his deadpan looks, either, but a real scowl, with furrowed brows and down-turned lips and a look in his eyes like he'd punch Raylan in the damn face if he could just manage to get his arms to work. "One of us's got to," he said. "Better this thing comes down on one of us than both of us."

"Who says it's coming down?"

Tim gave Raylan a look that was a touch too pale and tired to be incredulous. "You're shitting me, right?"

"What, you're suddenly an expert in cave-ins?"

"And you are?" Tim challenged, but then he turned his head again, a wry, bitter smile on his lips. "'course you are.  _You dug coal_."

Raylan was well aware he was being made fun of, or at least prodded, but he was too tired to get his hackles raised. And anyway, it was hard to be mad at someone knowing full well they were just putting on a brave face, and doing it trying to keep his ass alive no less. He…he appreciated it, admired it, that Tim wanted to protect him.

Didn't mean he was going to go along with it.

Instead, he let out a breath, slow and even, and said, "I reckon there's about a fifty-fifty chance this place gives before rescue can get to it." Probably closer to sixty-forty, and not in their favor, but he was tryin' to settle Tim down, not rile him up. The reality as he said it was bad enough. There was a good chance the walls would give, bring thousands of pounds of concrete and metal down on their heads. There was a good chance they'd die.

Raylan knew that.

"That's a chance I'm willin' to take."

He knew that was the wrong thing to say soon as he saw the flash in Tim's eyes. "And what if I'm not?" he snapped. It was the closest he'd come to shouting yet, but Raylan could tell there was more where it came from.

He didn't care. Let him holler, let him shout. Better that than sitting there, half-convinced he was back in that hell his head keeps forcing on him. Because Raylan knew, if he left him, that was what he'd do. He'd slip back, and if the pocket really did collapse…knowing that was how Tim'd spent his last moments, alone and scared and half out of his damn head…shit, he'd  _wish_  he'd died with him. If anything, he was just saving himself the trouble.

"Well then," he said after a long minute, "I reckon you're in for a very irritating half hour."

"Damnit, Raylan—!" That clearly wasn't all the words he had in mind, but in typical Tim fashion, he moved when he spoke, and he must've tweaked something wrong, because his whole body folded in on itself. Next thing Raylan knew, he was half rolled over to the other side, throwing up whatever he'd eaten for breakfast that morning.

"Shit," Raylan swore under his breath, and in an instant, he had Tim with one hand on his good side, and the other under his arm on the bad side, the one he'd rolled over onto, holding his chest. He was trying to keep the weight off his shoulder, for one, but he was also trying to keep Tim from falling face first into a puddle of his own sick. "Easy, now. You're okay. Just try and catch your breath."

Tim muttered something, but Raylan lost it to another round of heaves that had Tim's whole body tensing, his free leg bending at the knee until Raylan could hear the glass crunching. And he just held him through it, tried to keep him still as best he could, until it was nothing but dry heaves and gags that brought nothing up, and then he eased him back upright.

He didn't prop him up against the pillar, though. He slid behind him, careful to avoid the mess over on the floor, and pulled him back against his chest.

The fight must've left Tim with the three-course meal he just tossed up, because he let Raylan pull him back, sagging against his chest like all his bones had gone soft. His good hand went to his shoulder, over the makeshift bandage that he'd long since bled through, and Raylan could scarcely believe how hard he was shaking. He knew he hated to be cold – always wearing one of those thick ass flannels around the house, and damn, but he could hog a blanket – and it just seemed real shitty that on top of everything else, he had to deal with that, too. There just wasn't a whole hell of a lot Raylan could do for it, besides putting his arms around him and hoping some of his body heat would help.

"Raylan." Tim's voice was quiet, strained through gritted teeth and what Raylan was guessing was a real sore throat. He was taking quick, shallow breaths like even moving his chest made something hurt, and his head was cradled against Raylan's shoulder like he couldn't hardly manage to keep it up. It occurred to Raylan, then, that whatever spell he'd just had had taken something out of him he didn't have to lose. "What're the chances… _really_  the chances…this don't come down on us?"

Raylan had half a mind to lie again, tell him fifty-fifty and just be done with it. But that wasn't what came out. "Forty percent," he said instead, because what the hell, Tim knew when he was lying. He wasn't kidding when he said they knew each other, maybe too damn well.

Tim hummed.

"What, you not goin' to tell me to get out again?"

"You gonna listen?"

Raylan chuckled despite himself. "Probably not."

"There y' go, then," Tim muttered, and Raylan just shook his head. It was amazing how he could be in such bad shape and still be such a smartass. "Still think you're an idiot."

"Yeah, well," Raylan gave a one-sided shrug, mindful not to jar Tim any. "It's like that old Sinatra song…'Takin' a Chance on Love'."

Tim turned his head a little cutting his eyes up at Raylan. "I prefer the Helen Forrest version," he said, then let his head fall back heavily against Raylan's shoulder.

That got an incredulous sort of snort out of Raylan. "Of course," he said. "I just told you I love you, and you're gripin' about my taste in singers." He had a few more complaints lined up, too, about Tim turning his nose up at his heartfelt, if a little bit roundabout, confession.

They died on his lips, though, when he felt Tim go limp.


	8. Chapter 8

It was like someone just cut all his strings. One second, Tim was sitting there, kind of tense, shaking, and the next, he was limp as a wet rag, all his weight slumped back against Raylan's chest.

"Tim?"

No answer.

"Tim?"

Not even a goddamn twitch.

"Tim!" Raylan lost his nerve and gave Tim a shake, and shit, he probably shouldn't have, Tim being in the state he was in, but he had to  _wake him up_.

It didn't work, and quick as he could, Raylan shifted around to Tim's side, propping him back against the pillar and trying not to lose his damn mind. Especially when his eyes caught sight of the fresh, wet blood on Tim's shoulder. He must've opened the wound back up again when he'd rolled over, and the sluggish bleeding had sped back up.

He swore sharply, his voice rough with nerves, and automatically reached up to press a hand over Tim's shoulder. More blood welled over his hand, slicking his skin, burning it, but he pressed harder into the makeshift bandage.

Ragged breaths broke from Tim's open lips, his chest heaving and cheeks puffing around each pant, and Raylan swore he saw his eyes move behind his lids. He was hurting him; he knew that. But he didn't have a choice.

"Come on, Tim, open your eyes," he said through gritted teeth. "Tim!" He gave him another shake.

This one worked. Christ, finally, it worked, and Raylan saw just a sliver of blue roll around before they closed again. His good arm waved vaguely, and he swallowed. "Lost m' fuckin' rifle," he muttered.

Raylan was torn between being relieved Tim was talking and worried as hell he was talking about some rifle he  _never had_. He sounded upset about it, his voice hitching in the middle, and Raylan decided on somewhere middle of the road.

"Hey," he said, maybe a little more sharply than he meant to, as Tim's head started to list, "everything's gonna be fine, alright?"

Tim actually raised his head at that, slowly, looking at Raylan through half-lidded eyes that gave Raylan the impression that, even though he was talking, he wasn't all there. And probably wasn't far from drifting back off again. His chest rose and fell slowly, like even that was an effort he barely had it in him to make.

"Tim, everything's gonna be fine," he repeated, more firmly this time, because that look Tim was giving him…it was like he was just too tired to care. "You understand?"

Tim blinked a few times, and damned if Raylan was scared each time he did that they wouldn't open again. He licked his lips, and Raylan watched his Adam's apple bob. He thought he was gonna say something, but then…his head started to loll. On reflex, Raylan caught it, cradling his head in his hand, and Tim didn't make any move to right himself.

Raylan felt something dangerously close to panic rise in his throat. He was just…just  _looking at him_ , Tim was, those glazed-over eyes. He wasn't blinking, just looking, eyes fixed on Raylan like he was the only thing he could see.

And then he wasn't. His eyes drifted close, each huffing breath coming slower as more blood wept over Raylan's hand on his shoulder.

"Tim?" Raylan barely managed to make his voice work. "Tim, come on." He shook him again, but this time, Tim didn't stir. "Goddamnit," he hissed, and carefully as he could, he shifted Tim's head over to rest against his shoulder so that he could check his watch. A half hour, those guys had said. It took Raylan some doing to turn his watch around and keep Tim balanced like he was, but he didn't dare let up on the pressure on his shoulder.

If his eyes and watch were to be believed, that put them at about another ten minutes before the cavalry was supposed to arrive. And at the rate Tim was bleeding out, never mind the state of his leg, those were ten minutes they didn't  _have_.

He swore again, a harsh, desperate sound that was quickly drowned out by a shout. "Hey!" he hollered, loud as he could. He didn't know if it'd make it out to them; Cliff had to be right up next to the entrance to get his voice to carry. But he had to try something, and he was running out of options. "Hey, I need some help in here, damnit!" He turned his head back to Tim, blood soaked fingers pressing against the pulse point on his neck. He could feel it, but… _shit_ , it was weak. His breaths were getting slower, too. "C'mon, Tim. You die on me after all this, I swear to God I'll kill you my—"

A voice cut Raylan's threat short, and his head snapped around towards it. It was coming from the outside, and if he listened, somehow, over the thunderin' of his heart in his throat, he could just make out the tail end of what the person was saying.

"—ding someone in."

The voice sounded distant and unfamiliar, muffled by all the rubble. But hell, even if it wasn't, it probably wouldn't have mattered. Raylan was having a hard time focusing on anything but the weak puffs of warm breath against the side of his neck.

"I'm coming towards you," another voice said, a little closer, but not a whole hell of a lot clearer. Raylan's head was foggy, like some of the concrete powder had gotten in there and clouded things up. "Stay where you are."

That, at least, wasn't gonna be a problem. There wasn't anywhere he  _could_  go; he couldn't move Tim, and he sure as hell wasn't going anywhere without him. And shit, even if it weren't for Tim, he wasn't real sure he could've moved anyway. Not with the way his head was spinning, and all his limbs felt like they'd been filled with wet sand. No, he wasn't going anywhere. Least not until he had incentive.

Which he got – incentive, he meant – not long after he heard the second voice, when its owner followed it through into the pocket with his orange suit and headlamp and frankly irritating voice. He started barking orders that Raylan hardly registered, but he must've heard them, because he went right along with them like a damn dancing monkey.

The next fifteen minutes were a blur. More voices came and went, more people. Rubble shifted, and Raylan was pushed out of the way to let the professionals do whatever the hell it was they needed to do to get Tim out from under all that concrete.

A part of him rose at the brush-off – he could help, goddamnit; he  _needed_  to help – but it seemed like sometime between his getting in there and theirs, his arms and legs had forgotten how to work, or his brain had forgotten how to make them, one. If he was bein' honest with himself, which he liked to think he made a habit of, he knew he'd have just gotten in the way.

Best he could do was shoot dirty looks at any of those fellas that so much as thought about taking a break digging Tim out to check on him. He knew he looked like shit, but he was fine. Worried as hell, hacked off at being so damn useless, but he wasn't the one they needed to be minding, and if he couldn't do anything to get Tim out himself, he could at least stand by and make damn sure that the fellas that could, did.

'Course, even that got tricky when he couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on half the time. The men worked at pace that was somehow too slow to bear and too quick for Raylan to follow, all at the same time.

One second, the two down by Tim's leg were batting plans back and forth about what to do, and they might as well have been talking about the weather, for all Raylan's rattled noggin' could pick out and piece together. The next, though, they'd set up some sort of jack under the pillar pinning Tim's leg, and while one ratcheted it up, the other fella got together with the first one to come in – Raylan had him pegged as an EMT – and the two of them hauled Tim out from under it.

After that, it was a damn snake put. Everybody was moving all at once, and all in a hurry. Everybody 'cept Tim, that was; he wasn't moving at all. That much, Raylan could piece together. He wasn't moving, not of his own power, and damned if that wasn't all Raylan could think about as he watched them haul him out.

They took Tim first, which even Raylan's scrambled egg had enough sense left not to mind, and then they took Raylan out. Problem was, by the time he made it topside and out of the damn contraption they'd used to lift him out, he'd lost track of him. They'd spirited him away, into the crowd of patrol cars and fire trucks and ambulances and what seemed to Raylan like every damn vehicle in Lexington they could round up with flashing lights and loud noises.

There were people everywhere, too. All sorts of people, from the civilians they'd pulled out of the bank to paramedics to Lexington PD and everything in between. Which begged the question of where the hell was—

"Raylan."

Raylan turned his head, winced, and turned his whole body instead. "Art." He blinked a few times, because either Art'd gotten himself a halo, or he'd found himself another flashing light. Nothing against Art, but he was pretty damn certain it was the latter, and his head wasn't real happy about that.

"Jesus, Raylan, did you try and catch the ceiling with your head?"

Raylan grit his teeth, lips pulling into a terse smile as he tried to convince himself that opening his eyes again wasn't the worst damn idea that'd crossed his mind in the past twenty-four hours. Considering everything he'd thought in the past, say, six hours, it probably shouldn't have been as hard as it was.

Eventually, though, he managed to peel his eyes open, and caught Art looking at him with that scowl that Raylan knew was the one where he couldn't decide if he wanted to throttle him or shove him towards the nearest paramedic.

He might've seen it once or twice before.

Scratching at his cheek – it itched like a son of a bitch, and it took his fingernails coming away red for him to realize why – he gave a one-sided shrug. "What the hell, I figured it was worth a shot," he shot back half-heartedly. He was a bit distracted, now that he'd gotten his eyes open again, scanning through the crowds and the damn near blinding array of flashing lights trying to spot his sniper. When that didn't pan out, he turned back to Art. "Hey, you see where they took Tim?"

Art raised an eyebrow. "Last I saw, they were loadin' him in the back of an ambulance," he said, and then his eyebrow dropped again, that scowl coming right back. Raylan could feel his eyes zeroing in on the bloody mess that had to be the side of his face. "Looks like you could use a hospital yourself, there, Johnny Walker. You know, I bet if you hurry, you could bum a ride on Tim's bus."

He was joking; Raylan knew that. That didn't stop him from perkin' up as much as his what-he-was-increasingly-sure-was-a-concussion would allow. "You know, Art," he said, "you're right. That's a great idea."

"Now hang on a minute. Raylan, I was—"

But Raylan had already turned heel and started off at a jog towards where most of the ambulances seemed to be parked. "Meet you at the hospital," he called over his shoulder, and tried to ignore the way his own voice made his head pound. It wasn't any worse than what the sirens were already doing, and he'd surely had worse, so he pushed it all back and picked up the pace, jogging through the crowds of people towards the buses. He figured he'd at least have a better chance of spotting him there.

Behind him, he could hear Art shouting after him, but he couldn't quite make out what he was saying, and he didn't care to slow down long enough to find out. Art might've been joking about bumming a ride, but he wasn't. He wanted – Lord help him, he  _needed_  – to find Tim, make sure he was okay, make sure they were takin' care of him, and if doing that meant he had to go play doctor, well then what the hell. He probably needed stitches anyhow.

It actually wasn't Tim he saw first, though. He saw a fella in orange talking to a paramedic by the back of an ambulance, all hurried and covered in concrete dust like Raylan was, and he figured that had to be the EMT from the rescue team. He was damn near sprinting by then, and when he finally made it up to them, he was sucking wind like nobody's business, and the edges of his vision had gone black for the pounding in his head. But he bit back the nausea and blocked out the pain, because he saw him: Tim was on the stretcher in the back. He couldn't see his face for the second paramedic working on him, but he knew those black boots.

"Hey," he said, and had he not been so damn proud of himself for not passing out on the spot, he probably would've been a bit shame-faced at how out of breath he was from just that short little sprint. "I'm comin' with."

The EMT didn't look like he was going to say anything – smart man – but the paramedic frowned. "Who are you?"

"Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens," Raylan rattled off in a hurry, not really giving one damn about whether or not a word of it was understandable. "He's my partner, and I'm riding with him." It wasn't a request, and Raylan tried to force as much 'cross me, I fucking dare you' into his eyes as he possibly could.

The paramedic's eyes flicked over to the EMT.

"He's okay," the guy said, and Raylan turned to him and tipped his head.

Damnit, he needed to find his hat.

The hat could wait, though, because the paramedic waved him in, and Raylan didn't waste any time climbing up into the back of the bus, sitting down on the bench on the side. It wasn't the first time he'd ridden in an ambulance, but it was the first time he'd felt such a sick, sharp stab in his chest when he looked down at the stretcher.

Tim was still out cold. The paramedic was taking a pair of scissors to his pants leg, and Raylan felt a surge of relief when she pulled his boot off instead of trying to cut it. Tim was just about as fond of those boots as he was of that big flannel shirt of his…and it occurred to Raylan that the fact that he knew shit like that probably should've clued him in a lot sooner to the changes in their relationship – and  _there's_  a hell of a word – before the whole 'trapped in a bank' shit.

Of course, that reflection lasted only so long as it took the paramedic to finish cutting away the leg of his pants, because as soon as he saw the state of his leg, his mind near enough went blank.

_Bear trap._

Those were the first words to trickle back in after the black out. Bear trap. It looked like Tim's leg'd been caught in a bear trap, cut deep all the way around and already swelling up. It didn't  _look_  broken, though. Not to say he was any sort of expert, but well, he'd broken his leg before, and it'd looked a hell of a lot less… _straight_  than Tim's did then. So, there was that at least. Shredded, but straight. A bloody, ragged mess, but what the hell, least the bone wasn't broken.

A voice in his head – it sounded strangely like Art – told him to take the win, though, and he did. Because the monitors they'd stuck on Tim's exposed chest were picking up a steady enough beat, his chest was rising and falling, and little puffs of breath were fogging up the mask over his pale face.

They'd made it out. He and Tim both. They'd made it out of the bank.

But they weren't out of the woods.


	9. Chapter 9

It'd been almost an hour since he got to the hospital.

They'd run Tim through the ER doors just as soon as they got in, where some lady in scrubs had kindly informed Raylan that he couldn't go in there. He'd stood outside the door for a good five, ten minutes, not really knowing what to do with himself – he didn't have anywhere to go, and didn't have the energy to go there – until that same woman that'd barred him from the door came back out, spotted him, and took pity on him.

She'd ushered him into what Raylan was calling the 'not-as-big-an-emergency' room, where there were cots all lined up along the walls and curtains hanging from the ceiling, and spent the next half hour patching him up. So far as Raylan could tell, that mostly just meant bathing him in antiseptic and slapping on butterfly bandages on all the cuts and scrapes he had all over from the broken glass and metal shards. He only had two that needed stitches: on the underside of his left forearm, where he'd dragged across some meshing crawling through into the pocket, and that wasn't too bad, just about three inches from his elbow and not too deep; and the cut on his temple where he cracked it open. If the nurse was to be believed – and he figured she was, her having gone to medical school and his having not – he had a hell of a concussion, but, and he quoted, his egg was just scrambled, not cracked. She rattled off a bunch of instructions, things to look for, and he remembered maybe half of them, then sent him to one of the bathrooms with a scrub top since his shirt'd been unsalvageable and a blanket, because he "looked a little shocky."

He managed to get cleaned up alright, washed the concrete powder and sweat and grime off him as well as he could. Must've scrubbed his hands for ten minutes just on their own.

For all the good it did him. He could still see flakes of red under his short fingernails, and there wasn't any amount of scalding water in the world going to make him forget the feeling of blood on his hands.  _Tim's blood_.

Eventually, he wound up in the waiting room, feeling a little more alive than he did before, if no less settled. His head was pounding a steady rhythm with his heart, his foot bouncing on the ground. The new was on, covering the bank robbery-turned-collapse, and since he didn't seem to have the energy to get up and change it himself, he was making a point of ignoring it. They had it on mute, so it wasn't so hard.

The playback in his head was a hell of a lot harder.

Part of him wondered if this was what Tim felt like, waking up from those nightmares of his. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see it. Every time he breathed, he could smell it. Every time he swallowed, he could taste it. The concrete, the smoke, the copper of blood on his tongue….

He shook his head to clear it, only to remember that was pretty high on his list of shit he shouldn't do for the next good while. It felt just about like it was about to topple of his shoulders, and his gut joined in on the fun with a sick little churn that had him swallowing thickly. Nerves – because that was what the real problem was: nerves; he was losing years of his life waiting to hear about Tim, if not from stress, than from the receptionist fixing to kill him if he asked again – and a concussion did not good bedfellows make, and trying to reconcile the nervous energy with the pressing urge to never move again, ever, thank you very much, was making him even more ill-tempered than he already was.

Which is probably why, when a hand lands on his shoulder, he just about bit its owner's head off. He had the quip all lined up on his tongue, ready to fire—

Only to stop short. The quip died on his tongue, irritation going with it in a surge of, first, surprise, but then, ultimately,  _relief_.

"Winona." It came out sounding half like a sigh, half like a question, and he felt this weird sort of wave in the back of his head, not quite like he was about to pass out, but like his head did give it some thought. He waited for it to pass before he pushed himself to his feet. "What're you doing here?"

Winona was frowning, and Raylan could feel her eyes giving him the once over. Taking in the bloody jeans, the scrubs, the gauze pad taped across his temple and the bandage wrapped around his arm. He knew he looked a mess, and Winona seemed to agree with him, because she had that frown line on her brow that usually set off warning bells in Raylan's head.

Only, they were all rung out at the moment.

He didn't get the usual chiding, anyhow. "Art called me," Winona said. "Told me you'd be at the hospital and you might need some new clothes." She let out a breath, pressing her palm flat against the front of her forehead like she did when she was trying to get her composure back. Or keep it. "God, I thought for a second—" But she stopped, like she couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.

She didn't need to. "I'm fine," Raylan told her, and hoped she couldn't hear how much of a lie that was. "Couple of bumps and bruises. Nothing an icepack and an aspirin won't fix." Which was mostly true.

That wasn't the problem, though.

Winona's brows furrowed. "So then…what're you still doing here?"

And it would've been amazing, how just that simple question could seem to squeeze all the air out of Raylan's lungs, could make his gut turn and his mouth go dry…if it wasn't so damn awful.

"Tim," he managed to say through the vise around his throat. It came out hoarse and hitched, and he saw a flash of concern in Winona's eyes that he wanted to send off quick as possible. He wasn't the one needed worrying over. So, under the pretense of scratching his brow and clearing his throat, he swallowed back the shitstorm in his chest. "Tim was there, too, in the cave-in." That was better. Not good, but better, and shit, he'd take it.

Comprehension dawned in Winona's eyes, her lips parting into a small 'o' around a quiet gasp. "Well, is he—is he okay?" she asked, her hand going to her hip. She was aiming for casual, but she seemed to've gone a little stray of the mark.

Not that Raylan was one to talk. That knot tightened, and he shook his head, not really giving a damn about the ache that surged up in his head. "I don't know," he tried to say, but his voice caught towards the end. He felt his eyes burning, and he bowed his head, pinching the bridge of his nose like he could somehow stave it off. "Shit."

"Oh, Raylan," Winona breathed, her voice somewhere in between sympathetic and exasperated. He could just about picture it on her face, even without looking. And then she had a hand around the back of his neck and an arm around his waist, hugging him, and it was just too  _damn easy_  to sink into it. To wrap his arms around her thin shoulders and rest his chin on her head and just…shit, just  _breathe._

He didn't talk. Wasn't sure he could've if he wanted. But his eyes were burning something fierce, and he blinked, because  _this wasn't him_. He didn't do this shit.

 _He did now_.

It took longer than it should've to get himself under control, and even that felt tenuous, strained, ready to shatter to a billion pieces at the drop of a hat. It was the best he had, though, the best he could do, and when he let his arms fall from Winona's shoulders and sank into one of the shitty waiting room chairs, she didn't ask questions, just let him go and sat down next to him.

For a long moment, neither said a word. Raylan could feel Winona's eyes on him as he ran his hand through his hair, rubbed his eyes, sniffed, and he knew when he raised his head that he wasn't foolin' anybody, especially not Winona, but she didn't mention it.

"What happened?" she asked instead. Her voice was soft, patient, like he could answer if he felt like and ignore her if he didn't.

Truth was, he didn't feel like much of anything. But he answered her anyway, if only because it gave him something to do. "Got a tip on a fugitive this mornin'. Tim and I went to check it out, and…well, I guess the long and short of it's that shit hit the fan. The guy wasn't alone, and he and his buddies were packin' C4. They were gettin' ready to blow the place, and there wasn't a whole hell of a lot I could do about it. But Tim…" Raylan let out a ragged-sounding chuckle, hanging his head and scrubbing at his face. "Shit, I don't think I've ever seen him move that fast."

Tim tended to do things on his own time, after all. Had that carefree saunter down to a damn art, couldn't be bothered to be in a hurry for much of anything. But not today. Today….

"He saved our asses." The words just kind of tumble out; he hadn't really given them much thought, but now that he has, he knows they're right. And he can't help thinking about all the other times Tim's saved his ass. Too many to count.

"He's a good Marshal," Winona said.

Raylan bit back a snort.  _Good_. "Better'n good." He felt a weird flash of something that felt a lot like pride in his chest as he said it, but he was just so grateful to feel something  _else_  to give it much thought. "You should've seen him. Took a damn bullet, still OK Corral'd it with me. South-pawed, too. Kid's a damn crack shot." Among other things. Many, many other things. The thought sobered Raylan. "Then the second cave-in happened. I was tryin' to get a hold of Art, and I—" He swallowed thickly, voice catching on the lump in his throat. "And I left him. I was just—I wasn't gonna be gone more'n a minute. I didn't think…."

This time, he was the one who didn't care to finish what he was saying. Or else, couldn't. Because what the hell was he supposed to say? He didn't think the place would cave in again? That the whole ceiling would fall on Tim? That he'd be trapped under there, have his leg all torn to bits, because Raylan didn't have the good sense to move him?

"Hey."

Raylan was snapped from his increasingly-violent thoughts by a hand on his shoulder, and he lifted his throbbing head to look at Winona. She was looking right back at him, a sad look in her eyes.

"Whatever happened, it wasn't your fault."

"How would you know?" Raylan shot back, maybe a little sharper than he should've.

Winona didn't seem to care, though. "Because I know you, Raylan," she said firmly. "I know you did everything you could, and then some. Which is more than most people would've."

"Wasn't enough."

"Sometimes it's not." And when Raylan shot her a frown, she just met it with an earnest look. "You're just a man, Raylan. I know it's hard to wrap that pretty little head of yours around," she paused to ruffle his hair, a hint of a fond smile on her face, "but sometimes, it's out of your hands."

This time, he did snort. "And sometimes, it ain't," he muttered.

Winona raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Instead of an answer, Raylan just reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a card, passing it over to Winona. She took it, and he could tell when she'd gotten to the good part – he'd memorized the damn thing by now – because her eyes went a little wide.

"Oh," she said simply.

" _Oh_." That was considerably more civil than his reaction had been. When the paramedic had pulled that little nugget out of Tim's wallet, he'd nearly had a conniption fit. It was all his health information. His name, address, allergies – penicillin and coconut, Raylan knew without looking, and seriously, who the hell was allergic to  _coconut?_  – his primary physician, and all that other shit, which made sense. Raylan had one like it in his own wallet, thanks to some bright idea by one of the girls in records.

What didn't make sense was that, listed under his primary contact, was Raylan's name and number. Under his  _primary_  contact. Which would've made maybe a little more sense if they were recent, but Raylan knew they did these things almost a year ago, back when he and Winona were still in their on-again stage. And okay, he knew Tim didn't have a whole hell of a lot of close friends, but—

"So, how long have you two been seeing each other?"

—what?

Raylan turned his head enough to look at her like she'd grown a second head. "Who told you we're 'seein' each other'?" he said.

He regretted the words just as soon as he said them.

"Shit." He hung his head, if only to avoid seeing Winona's smile, but then he gave up and looked back up at her, trying to decide between being shamefaced and sheepish. It wasn't that he was ashamed of it, of him and Tim; he was just feeling a little sorry this was how Winona was finding out about it. And, truth be told, a little nervous about what she'd do with knowing. He really didn't think he had a fight in him tonight. "How'd you know?"

But Winona kept right on smiling, and Raylan had the sudden, optimistic hope that maybe there wasn't going to be a fight.

"You mean besides you pretty much telling me just now?" she asked, and there was just a hint of a tease to her voice that made Raylan's lip twitch. It was hard to appreciate the humor when there was still a clamp on his chest, but it was pretty damn easy to appreciate the distraction.

He nodded stiffly, mindful of the bass drum somewhere behind his eyes. "Besides that."

"Honestly, I didn't," Winona said. "Kinda figured something was going on, though, when you came by to visit Maddie and I saw him sitting out in your car."

It occurred to Raylan that he should probably be a little embarrassed, getting caught red-handed like that. But he was too caught up in remembering that day. It'd been after a hard bust. Guy locked himself up in his house, threatened to kill his own kid if they didn't back off. Tim'd been the one to take him down, and while normally that was enough for one of their little impromptu get-togethers, that hadn't been it. The man'd been a real asshole: warrants out for assault, harassment, and he'd beat the shit out of his wife and son. They'd both seen the bruises all over him, and while Tim didn't talk about his childhood – what little of one he had before they stuck a rifle in his hand and pointed him towards the Taliban – Raylan knew those lash marks on his back and the cigarette burn on his wrist, the one under his rifle tattoo, well enough to put a few things together.

They'd spent the night at Raylan's apartment over the bar, eating pizza, getting drunk on premium booze, and watching  _High Noon_.

The more he thought about nights like that – no sex, just…company – the more he realized they'd been something more than lovers a lot longer than he'd thought.

"So, does he know?" Winona asked, effectively snapping him out of his little daydream. Which was a damn shame, because it was probably the happiest thing to pass through his headspace in going on twelve hours, now.

"Know what?"

Winona gave him a deadpan look, eyebrow like 'you know exactly what I'm talking about, Raylan Givens, so don't give me that.'

She had very expressive eyebrows.

"That you love him," she said.

He was surprised to find he was strangely okay with hearing the l-word tacked on with Tim. It was one thing for him to admit it to himself; another to admit it to another person. But what the hell, he shrugged. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" She didn't sound all too pleased with his answer. "Well, have you told him?"

"Sort of."

"How do you  _sort of_  tell someone you love them?" she asked, but then seemed to reconsider. "Never mind. With you, I don't doubt it."

Raylan narrowed his eyes. "I  _might_  have…quoted a song to him," he admitted, and even the situation being what it was couldn't keep his lips from curling just a hint, mostly out of sheepishness and anticipation of Winona's response.

She didn't disappoint, letting out a snort that was somehow still ladylike. "Oh, Raylan," she said, shaking her head. "And what'd he say?"

Raylan's smile hitched up a little higher, but there was a pang in his chest. "He prefers the Helen Forrest version," he said, but then his smile fell.

Winona chuckled softly. "That's Tim, I guess." She'd only met him a few times, far as Raylan knew, but it didn't take long to figure out that Tim was a quirky son of a bitch. It was the other stuff that took a bit longer.

"Yeah." Raylan's voice was hoarse again, and he bent over, elbows propped on his knees. "That's Tim."

Beside him, Winona sighed. "Oh, Raylan," she said again, and this time, it was pure sympathy on his account. If he'd been in any better a state, he might've taken the time to appreciate how supportive she was being, findin' out her ex-husband and father of her child's head over boots for his coworker. His  _male_  coworker. But as it was, it was all he could do to take a breath and let it out, focusing on the feel of her hand rubbing small circles between his shoulder blades. He stopped, though, when she patted him on the back and stood. "Alright, here's what you're gonna do." When he looked up, she had her hand on her hip and a duffel bag in her hand which all but popped him in the face with. "Take your clothes, go change. I gotta call Gayle and tell her I'll be out for another couple hours."

And that was when it occurred to Raylan. "Shit, Madison." He felt a sick surge of guilt well in his— "Ow!" He jumped to his feet, holding his ear. "Did you just pinch me?"

"Well, I'd have smacked you upside the head, but it looks like someone already beat me to it," Winona said matter-of-factly – not to mention completely unapologetically. "You've got a lot on your mind, Raylan. It's okay. You're not in the runnin' for World's Worst Daddy just yet."

"Just yet," Raylan echoed, but it didn't have quite the self-reproach to it he felt before.

Winona must've been able to tell, because she nodded, and with one hand on her hip, she pointed towards the bathroom. "Good, now go."

And Raylan started to, but he'd just started to turn around before he turned back. "You're a hell of a woman, you know that, right?" he said. Even if she did, he felt it needed saying. He still loved her, he guessed. He really did. But their relationship was one of always feeling like he needed to be better, just to make her happy.

With Tim, it was more about just being happy, and maybe being a little better for it.

Winona's lips curled into a smile. "Oh, I know," she replied. "Now get your ass in that bathroom, before I change my mind about beating you."

Wisely, Raylan did as he was told.


	10. Chapter 10

Raylan felt a little better in clean clothes.

Course, it doesn't hurt that, when he got out of the bathroom, Winona was waiting for him with a cup of coffee and what looked to be a cup of soup from the hospital cafeteria.

"You find a time machine while I was in there?" he asked as he walked back out to her. Christ, but it felt like he had sandbags tied to his feet. His legs felt shaky, his boots heavy, and that little pain pill the nurse'd given him for his head must've been starting to kick in, because he was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges.

Winona just handed him the coffee, which he accepted gratefully. Figured a little warmth might chase away the shakiness, and some caffeine might do the same to the fog creeping in. "No," she said. "You were just in there a really long time."

Raylan cut his eyes at her over the lid of the coffee, but he couldn't muster up the chutzpah for a real glare. Especially not when she'd braved the cafeteria to bring him hot food and drink, even if he didn't particularly feel up to stomaching the latter.

Her eyes are soft, too, and she's wearing what Raylan's dubbed her 'poor baby' smile. "You got roughed up pretty good, huh?" she asked, fingers brushing the edge of the bandage on his temple. He'd seen in the bathroom mirror that the bruising was already starting to spread, across his brow and down over his cheekbone. He figured chances were good he'd have a pretty nice shiner there come tomorrow.

"Feels like I've been put through a woodchipper," he told her honestly, once he'd taken a few mouthfuls of the bitter, but nonetheless blessed coffee. "Then pieced back together and strung up for a kids' birthday party."

"Well, Raylan, if it's any consolation…you  _do_  look as bad as you feel."

Raylan felt a chuckle rattle somewhere in deep in his chest. "So it's not just me?" he asked, just a touch sarcastically.

"Nope, it's not just you."

"That's a relief."

Winona just nodded, and then held out the soup for him to take. "Come on, you need to eat something," she said, and despite not really having much of an appetite, Raylan was getting ready to take it—

"Is there somebody here for Tim Gutterson?"

—and promptly forgot all about it.

"Here," he said, nigh-on jogging to get to doctor that'd just walked into the waiting room. Least, he assumed she was a doctor. She was wearing scrubs and a lab coat, had a clipboard tucked up under her arm and her hair pulled back. In short, she looked the type. She also looked…familiar, but he couldn't be bothered right then to try to remember from where. He had bigger things to worry about. "How is he?"

Her brows pinched in when she saw him, and he distinctly noticed her eyes taking in the bandage on his head, his arm, and probably just his general put-through-the-ringer appearance. All the same, her tone was nice and polite when she asked, "Who are you?"

"Raylan Givens," he said. "I'm his partner."

Her eyes widened a little bit at that, like he'd just said something shocking, before that cordial sort of professionalism fell right back into place. "I'm Doctor Rebecca Cason. I performed the surgery, and I'm going to be looking after Deputy Gutterson while he's here at the hospital." And then she turned to Winona, who'd apparently come up behind him, eyebrow raised just a little.

"Oh, I'm here for him," she said, pointing to Raylan.

Which seemed to be good enough for the doctor, because she pulled the clipboard around and perched it against her hip. "Have you been informed any of Mister Gutterson's condition?" she asked.

Raylan shook his head, and ended up having to grab the back of one of the chairs to keep from tipping over. Christ, he wasn't sure what was going to kill him first: his head, or his heart. "Just that they were takin' him into surgery," he said. He remembered that much, from the nurse that'd been herding him around earlier. "For his leg."

Doctor Cason nodded. "Well, the surgery went well. There was no break, and we were able to repair most of the soft tissue damage. The rest should heal with time and physical therapy." She flipped to the next page of his chart. "I was a little concerned – it says in his file that he's had some adverse reactions to anesthesia in the past. But he was doing so well, we opted to go ahead and remove the bullet from his shoulder as well. He does have a small hairline fracture in his right collarbone where the bullet glanced it, but it didn't require any additional treatment. We'll put him on a steady course of anti-inflammatories and keep it immobilized, and it should heal just fine."

It was that last word,  _fine_ , that made Raylan remember how to breathe. He let out a breath he knew damn well he'd been holding, nearly doubling over with the intensity of it, and he wasn't really sure how, but he ended up sitting on the arm of the chair he'd been leaning on, hand closed over his mouth.

"Are you alright?"

Raylan looked up to see Doctor Cason looking at him, and he was surprised to see some of that professionalism from before gone. She looked a lot more…human, that'a'way.

Before he got the chance to nod – probably for the better, in hindsight – or grind out some variation on a yes, though, she cut in. "You were in the bank today, too, weren't you?" Somehow, Raylan got the feeling that was what she'd figured out earlier. "You're the other deputy."

"Yes'm," Raylan said.

She nodded, her lips pursing. "So, when you said partner…" she trailed off, like she wasn't really sure she should finish it, but gestured with her hand like he should.

It took probably a little longer than it should have to figure out just what she was hinting at. Partner.  _Partner_. Two different meanings; he hadn't even thought about the second.

It took far less time for it to dawn on him that…he really didn't mind it.

Didn't mean he was going to go around spouting it either, though. Instead, he just smiled his most charming smile – which probably wasn't very, considering the state of him – and asked, "So, he's doin' alright, then?"

Doctor Cason's brows furrowed a little for a second at his answer, but then they relaxed. Apparently, she was the go-with-it sort. He was just glad she was done with that professional bullshit. "Mister Givens—"

"Raylan," he said. "Please." Mister Givens was his father, and he liked to keep that association to a bare minimum, thanks.

She nodded. " _Raylan_ …as a doctor, it's my responsibility to do my best to treat every patient that's placed in my hands." She leaned in a little closer, lowering her voice. "But just between you and me? My sister was in that bank robbery with her little girl, and I don't like to think about what would've happened to them if your partner hadn't been there, so…thank you. Both of you. And I want you to know that I'm going to do everything I can to make sure your partner makes a full and speedy recovery."

And he knew, from the look in her eyes, that she meant that. It wasn't just some placating, patronizing bullshit; that was genuine, heartfelt gratitude in her eyes.

If there'd been any room for it, he might've been humbled. There was just a little too much else going on at the time. Maybe it'd hit him later. As it was, all he could manage was a hoarse-sounding, "Thank you," that, to his credit, was just as heartfelt and genuine, just a little less…articulate. He figured the concussion had earned him the right, though.

"So, when can I see him?" he asked, before it occurred to him that maybe  _when can he have visitors_  might've been a slightly less obvious way to phrase it. He said he wasn't planning on broadcasting things, but he was doing a pretty rough job of it so far. Which didn't even make sense, because there wasn't really anything to broadcast. Tim hadn't  _said_  anything. Not really. And what little he had said, he'd said while under duress and in shock, so he wasn't real sure it counted. He might've been real put-off, if he hadn't been hurting so bad.

That was what he told himself, anyhow. Trying to keep his hopes down, he guessed.

If Cason thought anything of it, though, it didn't show. "They're getting him set up in a room right now. It should only be another few minutes before he's ready, and I'll have a nurse come out to get you then."

"Sounds great." Even though he wasn't real happy about waiting any longer, he figured he'd waited – he checked the wall clock – three hours already, so another few minutes wasn't going to kill him. Hell, it might even take him that long to get his legs to remember how to work properly again, and maybe remind himself just which way was up while he was at it.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Cason asked.

Raylan lifted his head, blinked a few times, and caught himself before he nodded. "I'll be fine," he said. Just as soon as he saw Tim, alive and kicking – well, maybe not kicking; not for a while, at least – he'd be better than fine.

Mercifully, Cason took him at his word, and with one last glance at the bandage on Raylan's head, she smiled at them and disappeared back into the door she came out of. Raylan watched her go, half to see her leave, but mostly in anticipation of the nurse that was supposed to be coming back out. And it did cross his mind how nigh-on pathetic that was. He was like some puppy waiting at the door for its owner to get back.

He just didn't have it in him to care.

"Hey." Winona's voice snapped him out of his staring contest with the door, and he glanced over at her – keeping the door in his periphery – with a raised eyebrow. She met it with a worried look. "Are you really okay, Raylan?"

He frowned. He didn't mean to, but he did. "Why's everyone keep askin' me that?" he said. "I don't know if it's escaped notice, but I'm not the one in the hospital."

Winona made a face, like she was about to say something she knew she shouldn't, so she didn't.

It took Raylan a few seconds longer than it should have to figure out what, and he scowled deeper. "You know what I meant."

"I do," Winona said patiently, hand going to brush carefully through Raylan's hair. He knew there was still blood matted in it, for all that nurses rinsing, and probably some concrete powder, but her fingers didn't snag on anything. "He's really got you by the nose, huh?" There was a hint of a smile on her face as she said it, but it was a sad sort of smile.

He probably had one on his face, too, as he sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I think he does." Which was a lie; there was no  _think_  to it. Tonight had proven something to him, shown him something he couldn't –  _wouldn't_  – brush off.

He really did love that crazy son of a bitch.


	11. Chapter 11

True to Cason's word, it wasn't long before a nurse came out calling Tim's name. She led him and Winona both through a labyrinth of hallways Raylan couldn't even begin to keep track of, and eventually stopped them right outside a door on the nursing floor.

Raylan was just relieved he didn't see the letters I, C, or U anywhere around.

"He's still pretty heavily sedated," the nurse said when she stopped them. "He'll probably sleep the rest of the night, maybe into tomorrow afternoon, but that's just his body recuperating. We've got him on a round of antibiotics and general fluids, just to get his blood pressure back up. He's on a morphine drip for the pain, and there's a remote by the bed to administer doses as needed." She dropped the clipboard she'd been holding, then – and Christ, Raylan thought, what was it with these people and their clipboards – and flashed them a warm, reassuring smile. "All this to say, he's going to have a lot of tubes and wires going into him, and he's probably going to look a little worse for wear."

Raylan bit back a remark about how, yeah, of course he'd look a little worse for wear. The man had been shot and had a bank dropped on him; he knew as much, thanks, just let him in to see him. She was just doing her job, though, and impatient as he was, he had to admit that the more he knew, the better.

"Now, for the time being, I can only allow one person in at a time. I can show whoever's staying back to the waiting room, once you two decide."

"He's staying," Winona cut in before Raylan could even think to open his mouth. He caught her eyes, though, and tipped his head appreciatively. She smiled in return. "I'll hang around until the others get here."

"Others?"

"Art said on the phone he'd be on his way as soon as he could," Winona said. "I'll stay until he gets here. And Raylan?"

"Yes?"

Winona reached out, grabbed his hand from his hip, and plopped the cup of soup into it. "Eat that." Then she reached into her purse, plucked out a spoon, and tucked it in the chest pocket of his over shirt, giving it a good pat before she turned to the nurse and nodded.

The nurse took that as her cue, and dropped the clipboard in the little bin nailed to the wall by the door and started off, Winona in tow.

For a good long minute, Raylan just stared after them. He must've looked a real fool, standing there with his cup of soup in one hand, coffee in the other, and a stupid look on his face, but he didn't really have the presence of mind to realize, much less care.

It wasn't until he caught a nurse giving him a funny look from the station just a little ways down the hall that he managed to snap himself out of it. He flashed her a watered-down version of his usual smile and ducked into the room.

He didn't make it more than a couple steps before he stopped dead, and any breath he'd managed to get back in his chest since earlier left in a harsh breath. One hand on his hip, the other closed over his mouth, he took in the sight in front of him with a mix of shock and disbelieve.

It was just…surreal.

The way Tim was lyin' on that bed, so still he looked almost…fake, somehow. Skin too pale, eyes closed, chest rising and falling under the blankets and the sling around his right arm, Raylan almost didn't see it. The nurse'd been wrong. It wasn't that he looked worse for wear. Bruised, bloody – that, Raylan could handle;  _had_  handled, even if he hadn't been too happy about it. But this, this was something different. Lying there so still like that, so pale against the light blue blanket they had pulled up over him, he looked  _fragile_. And something about that clashed so violently with what Raylan knew about him, about how damn tough he was, it was unsettling.

"Christ." He put the coffee and soup down on little shelf under the whiteboard by the door, then scrubbed his hands over his face and let them fall down to his hips. His legs started moving without his say-so, carrying him right up to the side of the bed, and he found himself reaching up with an unsteady hand to smooth his hair back out of his face.

He was probably just a bit too relieved when he felt warmth against his hand. Skin. Not cold, and not porcelain. Not fake. Not…not  _dead_.

Just… _a little worse for wear_.

The first – and only – tear slipped from his eye to trail down his cheek, and he couldn't be bothered to wipe it away. That would've meant freeing up a hand; he couldn't do that. Not the one braced on the bed, because the weight of the day had hit him like a Mac truck at the same time the last of his adrenaline gave out, and he wasn't real sure he trusted his legs right at the moment. And sure as hell not the hand he had carded through Tim's hair.

He was a little surprised to find it was a little bit damp – Tim's hair, was. He figured they'd probably washed it, or at least rinsed it, trying to get the concrete powder and glass out. It had those soft, loose curls he got when he'd just gotten out of the shower and hadn't bothered to gel it back like he usually did. Raylan'd never say it, but he'd gotten kind of fond of the way it felt to run his fingers through it, and of the way Tim's eyes would drift close when he did. Neither one of them were big on obvious affection – Raylan, because it just wasn't how he operated; Tim, because…well, shit, Raylan wasn't sure he knew what to do with it – but there were little things they did, meant just as much. Maybe more.

Only, Tim didn't close his eyes; they were already closed. He didn't do that thing where he leaned his head into Raylan's hand. Didn't let out that low, contented hum he did from time to time. Didn't do anything. Just…laid there.

Raylan sighed. "Tim, buddy," he said, "it's gonna be a long night."

That thought didn't bother him nearly as much as he thought it would, though. He supposed it was real hard to be put out about waiting around a hospital bed for a while when, a few hours earlier, he wasn't even sure they were gonna make it this far. The fact that Tim was doing this well just went to show that they were both lucky bastards, and that Tim really was the toughest little son of a bitch he'd ever met.

"Knowin' you, you'll be up at six, same as always." And yes, it did occur to him that he was more or less talking to himself, but he preferred that to the near silence in the room, broken only by the occasional beep of the machines and some noise outside. He was smiling to himself, too, shaking his head –  _to himself_  – as he forced himself to back up the two, three steps it was between the bed and the chair in the corner. He reckoned it was that'a'way for a reason, because there was a sign posted on the wall that suggest in big, bold letters in a real cordial tone that it not be moved, so he didn't. Now that he'd had his mind put as close to ease as he figured he was going to be able to at present, just keeping an eye on him would be enough.

So, that was what he did. Never mind the television mounted on the wall, Raylan just sat there, leaned back in the pretty decent little armchair in the corner – had an alright-looking couch there, too, along the wall under the window – with one leg crossed over the other and his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes on the bed.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there. Long enough for a shift change, from the sounds of things outside, but he couldn't rightly say much else. Didn't care. As the adrenaline ebbed and the exhaustion set in, his eyes started drifting. He blinked awake a couple times, but mostly, he was content to doze.

Least, he was 'till the door opened.

In hindsight, he probably should've been a little more cautious about getting to his feet. His vision went black a second, and he found his hand going back to the arm of the chair so as he didn't do something graceless. He stayed on his feet, though, and after a couple seconds of blinking and being very,  _very_  still, his vision cleared enough to see the nurse coming in.

Seemed he was right about the shift change. This nurse was different than the one before, and while he wasn't so simple as to believe there was just the one on the shift, he hadn't seen this one around at all.

"Raylan Givens?" she said.

"Unless the concussion's worse than I thought." It occurred to him after he'd said it that maybe sassing the nurse wasn't the best course of action, but she didn't seem to mind too much. If anything, she barely even seemed to notice.

"There's a man in the waiting room here to see you. Art Mullen?"

Shit, Raylan'd almost forgotten. He'd been too busy almost passing out in that armchair. Even now, he was half convinced it wouldn't be a bad idea to have the nurse tell Art to come back in the morning, let him have a good night's rest, now that he'd talked the head nurse into letting him crash on the couch.

But, no. Art would need an update, and he'd probably need to give at least the cliffnotes version of a statement, just so the DA couldn't come down on his ass for shooting somebody else. Or so that they couldn't come down on Tim.

That was the one that really got him moving. He was already on their speed dial; Tim's slate was squeaky clean, though, and he'd like to keep it that way.

"Mind showin' me where the waiting room is?" he asked eventually, rubbing his eyes and trying to pretend he was a little closer to coherent than he really was.

She actually smiled, so Raylan figured he was in the clear. "Sure, just follow me."

He did, for the most part. He paused at the door, though – wasn't really sure why, he just did – and turned one last time to glance at Tim. Like he was makin' sure he was still there or something.

Honestly, he had no idea. He was so far in the outfield on this one, he was in the damn parking lot. He was just lucky the nurse seemed to have the patience of Mother Theresa herself, meeting him outside the door with that same warm smile on her face that didn't even look a little bit forced.

"I don't think we've met," he thought aloud as he followed her through the hallway.

"Shift change," the nurse said simply. Raylan nodded. "My name's Tiffany. I'll be the night shift nurse for this wing."

Raylan mustered up a smile when she glanced over at him. What the hell, it was only polite, and it wasn't like the world was ending.

 _Not anymore_.

"Raylan Givens," he said.

"The US Marshal, right?"

Raylan's eyebrow ticked up on the side that wasn't swollen and all covered in a bandage. "Word gets around pretty quick here, huh?"

Tiffany nodded. "It's been all over the news. You and your partner saving all those people at the bank." She glanced over at him again, but this time, he didn't really have it in him to smile back at her. "You're already celebrities around here."

Maybe it was just the concussion gumming up the works, but Raylan was drawing a blank as to how to respond to that. Luckily, he was saved from having to by their reaching a door, which the nurse waved him into with a smile.

"Just let Marsha at the desk know if you need anything," she said, and then left him to walk into the waiting room himself.

His scrambled brain, at the very least, could manage that much.

"Art," he said by way of greeting as he walked in. Sure enough, Art was standing there with Winona, no more than a few feet from the door. "Where's Rachel?"

"She's still taking statements," Art said. "She'll be here soon as she finishes up there. Told her I'd keep her posted, soon as I found out how Tim was doing."

Raylan nodded – gingerly – and took as deep a breath as the returning lump in his throat would allow. "He's stable," he said first, because that seemed like a good thing to lead with. Sure as hell made him feel a little better, if only a little. "Bad news is, he's got a hairline fracture on his collarbone where the bullet hit. Good news is, that's the only thing that's broken. His leg's torn up pretty bad, but the doctor said she managed to get it pretty well stitched back together. According to her, a little bit of R&R and some physical therapy, he'll be right as rain."

He was a little surprised with himself by the end of it. Pleasantly surprised. He'd manage to rattle off all that without getting choked up, sick to his gut, or any other sort of too wound up. Of course, how much of that was him finally normalizing, and how much of it was him just being too drained to manage much of a proper freak out was kind of up in the air. Raylan, for one, was perfectly happy not lookin' that particular gift horse in its pearly whites.

But then Art's voice cut through the fog in his head like a knife through butter.

"What about you?"

"Huh?"

He was gonna blame that particular feat of eloquence on the concussion.

Art frowned, but it wasn't so much a real frown as a 'what am I going to do with you?' frown, which was an entirely different beast in Raylan's experience. "Well, shit, Raylan, I was asking if you were okay, but I think that's asked and answered."

"Did you eat that soup I brought you?" Winona asked, apparently deciding Raylan hadn't been beaten up on enough today, and that she needed to join in the fun.

He glanced over at her. "I forgot," he said.

"You forgot?"

" _Yes_."

This time when Art frowned, it was a real frown. "Son, when was the last time you ate?"

"I can't rightly recall, Art," Raylan shot back blandly. This was fast headed in a direction he didn't want it to, and he was hoping to skip out before it got too far in. "Is there anything else I can do for you two, or can I get back to…" he waved his hand illustratively towards the door, and started to turn to head that direction.

"Hold up, Raylan."

Raylan stopped, biting back a wince. At this rate, he was never gonna make it back to Tim's room. But he didn't have it in him to be contrary – at least not just yet – so he turned around.

Art was standing there, his hands behind his back. "I got a present for you."

"Shit, I didn't get you anything," Raylan said dryly. He did regret being so curt, Art being innocent in all this as he was.

Especially when, from behind his back, Art produced Raylan's Stetson.

"Couple of the rescue workers found this in the rubble," he said, passing it over to Raylan. "I saved it from evidence. You should be thanking me."

Raylan dusted off the brim, even though it looked like Art'd even gone through the trouble of cleaning it up a little. "Thank you." There wasn't even a hint of sarcasm in his tone as he said it. The hat was…shit, it was the last thing. He'd thought he was gonna lose Tim; now Tim was more or less okay, sleeping in a hospital bed and on the mend. He'd thought he'd lost his hat, and here it was, right in his hands again. They were all a little beaten up, a little shaken.

But in the end, they all made it out.


	12. Chapter 12

A few hours later, after Art and, eventually, Rachel got their turns visiting with a still-sleeping Tim and Raylan finished giving his statement and choking down a turkey and cheese sandwich from the cafeteria, he wound up stretched out on the couch under the window. Tiffany had brought in an extra stack of blankets and a pillow, and it hadn't taken much in the way of convincing to get them to let him stick around after hours, what with how much they wanted to keep an eye on him, too. Tiffany'd poke her head in every hour or so, strike up a bit of conversation, which Raylan knew was all just a clever way of making sure his egg wasn't too scrambled.  
He tried telling her that ship had already sailed, but she just laughed him off and went about her business, so he went about his.

There was a game on the television. He couldn't have said who was playing or how they were doing, though. He had the volume up just enough that it made a nice haze around those blessed infernal beeps from one of the half-a-dozen monitors Tim was hooked up to, but low enough it didn't aggravate his headache too much. The words ended up sort of blurring together, anyhow. He didn't much care, anyway. After the day he'd had, he'd have had trouble getting into much of anything that wasn't him falling asleep or Tim waking up.

Even tired as he was, it was an easy choice which he'd rather.

Problem was, much as he wished Tim would open those baby blues sooner rather than later, Tiffany was holding fast to her prediction of him sleeping through the night, at the very least. And Raylan wasn't selfish enough to want him to come out of it sooner than he was ready. No, he wanted Tim to take all the time he needed, rest up; he'd come around when he was good and ready. Raylan just wasn't too fond of waiting was all.

Lucky for him, he did still have option two: sleep. And as the game went off and the usual late-night infomercials came on, that option started looking better and better. He shifted, turning over on his side and tucking an arm under the pillow. It wouldn't make for a very comfortable morning, sore as he was already getting and damn near geriatric as he knew he was gonna be when he woke up, but it lifted his head up enough that he was level with the bed, and could watch the almost-imperceptible rise and fall of Tim's chest under the blankets, see the profile of his face in the dim light of the moon. It wasn't twisted up. His brows weren't scrunched, his lips weren't drawn. He wasn't hurting. He wasn't scared. He wasn't trapped somewhere in that head of his, dodging gunfire or explosions or whatever the hell he saw when he closed his eyes. He was just…sleeping.

And it wasn't too much longer before Raylan was doing the same.

The voice that woke him up wasn't what he'd call a familiar one, but at least it was one he recognized.

"…to lower the dose, now." Some papers were shuffled. "The dressing change is still scheduled for eight?" Another person hummed a confirmation. "Sounds great. Page me when it's time; I want to get a look at it before you re-dress it."

As the woman spoke, Raylan slowly peeled his eyes open and started to sit up. Which was where things got kinda tricky. Moving, in general, turned out to be a pretty piss poor idea, or at least every inch of him seemed to think so. He was sore all over, in places he hadn't been sore in a good long while. His head pounded a steady rhythm, and it felt like even thinking about moving anything made his muscles pitch a fit.

"Ah, Deputy Givens," said the voice, and Raylan blinked a few times trying to get his eyes adjusted to the hellishly bright light of the hospital room before giving up altogether and just squinting at her like an old man. Or worse, Art. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

Grimacing, Raylan sucked it up and pushed himself more or less upright, bracing one hand on the makeshift bed beside him and one on his head, just in case it did what it seemed to want to do and went on and rolled off his shoulders. "Oh, is that where this is?" he said wryly. His voice was hoarse, and his mouth tasted like something had died in it, but that was just about usual course for the odd Saturday morning.

Doctor Cason just smiled, and were her teeth whiter and brighter, or was it just the little drummers beating around in Raylan's head? "As far as I know." Sliding the clipboard she was holding back into the little slot on the bed, she closed the distance to Raylan's little hideaway, and Raylan tried real hard not to hold the clip-clopping of her shoes against her. Same with the little pen light she took to shining in his eyes. "At the risk of asking a stupid question, how are you feeling?"

Raylan blinked a few more times, this time trying to clear the spots from his vision once the nice lady doctor put away her torture device. No surprise, it didn't work this time, either. "At the risk of giving a wiseass answer," he replied dryly, "like I've had a bank dropped on me."

"Only a bank?" she asked good-naturedly.

His shrug was one-sided and half-hearted at best. At worst, it probably just looked like he was twitching. "What can I say? It was a slow day in the office."

"Can't imagine what that must be like." And she must've been telling the truth, because she couldn't even seem to take the time to talk without doing her work, too, poking and prodding his bumps and bruises like she was prospecting. It was damn uncomfortable.

"I'm sure you can't."

"Better it's all upstairs than downstairs, though."

Raylan was gonna say it was on account of the concussion that it took him so long to get her meaning. Downstairs meaning the morgue. Right. "Fair point."

She nodded. "I do make those from time to time." And mercifully, she seemed to be done with whatever it was she was doing. "Good news is, you're not any worse than you were last night," she said.

"Funny thing about good news is it's usually followed by bad."

"You're pretty quick for a man with an ostrich egg on his skull." He wasn't entirely sure it was a compliment, but he kept it to himself. "Bad news is, it'll probably take a while before you're feeling any better."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Raylan said. "I'm fit as a fiddle." To emphasize his point, he started to stand, made it all of an inch, and very deliberately sat back down. "I rest my case."

"And your ass," Doctor Cason said bluntly.

Raylan pointed. "That too."

"That's actually probably for the better, Mister Givens. I'd say you need at least a week to get back on your feet, and that's just for the concussion. The rest, we'll have to see after your follow up, which you can either do through the hospital, or through your general practitioner."

"Who's more likely to give me the all clear first?"

"Depends. Who's your doctor?"

Something told Raylan the question was rhetorical. The fact that she turned around before she could answer and started walking over to the sink to wash her hands kind of supported the theory. Not too shabby for a knocked noggin, if he did say so himself.

He knew she was busy, so he didn't mind it much. She had things to do, and he didn't mean to get in the way of her work. Still, "What about him?" he asked, nodding towards Tim. He hadn't moved, as far as Raylan could tell, since he'd fallen asleep watching him. And if that sounded less creepy in his head, then he reckoned it was a damn good thing that was where it was staying.

"He's doing about as well as can be expected," Doctor Cason answered, a bit more seriously than the rest of the conversation had been leading up to that point. "I don't know how much you heard before you saw fit to open your eyes, but we're going to start inching back his morphine dose a little."

Raylan's brows furrowed. And promptly un-furrowed when he realized it hurt like a bitch. "Isn't it a little early to start cutting back his pain meds? Not that I'm doubting you or anything; I just mean he was in pretty rough shape, and I don't see that changing much overnight."

"No, you're absolutely right. His recovery is going to be a slow process. But we're not taking him off pain medication entirely. We'll wean him off it gradually over the next couple days, and get him switched over to something that's going to be a little easier on his system. Plus, the longer he stays on it, the harder it's going to be to get him off of it  _and_  the less effective it's going to be over time. Right now, we just want to give him enough to get him through the post-op and help him make the transition to something a bit more long-term."

"So it's not gonna wake him up hurting, bumping the dose down like you are?"

Doctor Cason smiled, but it was the kind of smile that didn't really reach her eyes. "Unfortunately, chances are he's going to be in some pain when he wakes up regardless. But we're going to make him as comfortable as possible, I promise."

And something about the way she said it told Raylan that was just gonna have to do, because there wasn't anything else could be done. He hated it. Not Doctor Cason or the fact that she was doing it, just that it had to be done in the first place. He hated the thought of Tim being in pain. Lord knew he'd been through enough of it the past twenty-four hours, and damn it, he deserved a break from it.

"Just take care of him, Doc," was what he said finally, and even he could hear how tired it sounded. It was more than just physical exhaustion – he had that in spades, too, given it was only just then closing in on seven in the morning, and he'd only just managed to nab a few hours of sleep – but this sort of bone-deep weariness that probably wasn't gonna go away until this whole ordeal was well and truly behind them. Which reminded him, "Hey Doc?"

"Mister Givens?"

"About how long do you think he's gonna be in here? The hospital, I mean. How long'll it be before he gets to go home?" Because if he knew Tim, which he reckoned he did, he wasn't gonna take too kindly to being cooped up in there. He'd want to get home just as soon as he could. Probably sooner. And beyond it being a pain to keep Tim anyplace he didn't want to be, Raylan wasn't looking forward to having to tell him he was stuck there for however long it was gonna take. He'd just as soon get him home – to his place, of course, because Tim wasn't gonna be on his own for a while yet if he had anything to say about it – and get him settled in there. He wasn't fighting fit himself, exactly, but give him a day or two and he'd be fine. A week was really overkill, in his experience. He'd had worse concussions than this one and been back in the mines the next day. And everything else was just surface stuff and exhaustion. Nothing a couple hot showers and some Tylenol wouldn't fix.

Doctor Cason didn't answer right away. She pursed her lips like she was thinking about, which Raylan both hated and appreciated, because it meant waiting, but it also meant she was probably gonna give him a real answer instead of just pulling one out of her ass.

Finally, though, she settled on, "No less than two weeks, I would say, but it's really all going to depend on him. We'll do some more tests once he's awake that should be able to give us a better grasp on his condition, and that should help us predict his recovery time. Just…it's important to remember not to rush these things. It's going to take time."

"Of course," Raylan said. "Thing is, it's not me that's gonna need convincing." He'd hog tie him to the bed for a month if he thought it'd help, to hell with whatever sulking and spitting Tim saw fit to throw his way. But Tim didn't really do  _idle_  well. Watching someone through a sniper scope was one thing, but Raylan'd seen how well Tim did with being cooped up: that is, not very. For someone who spent a lot of his career being dead still, he had more nervous energy in him than just about anyone Raylan'd ever met. It was like he kept all his attention span stowed somewhere in his guns; take them away, and he was the most restless son of a bitch Raylan'd like to have ever met.

"Then I suppose it's a good thing we'll have you around to keep him in line," Cason said. And this time, the smile did reach her eyes. "If that's everything you need, I've got the rest of my rounds to make. But if you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to get a nurse to track me down. Alright?"

Raylan nodded gingerly. "Alright. Thanks, Doc."

"Anytime, Mister Givens. And I'll send someone in with something for you and that goose egg of yours."

"Much appreciated." As Doctor Cason turned and left, Raylan walked across the room to stand by Tim's bed. He was right; he hadn't moved. Not as far as he could tell, anyway. Looked like they hadn't disturbed him any just yet, although he imagined it was gonna take some moving to get at his bandages, what with his shoulder and his leg both needing a dressing change. "Makin' trouble everywhere you go, huh?" he said to the air, since Tim wasn't really listening. "You and I are gonna have to have a long talk about all these bad habits you're pickin' up."

And as he said it, Raylan was sure if he listened hard enough, wherever he was, he could hear Art snort.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are even better than caffeine.


End file.
